Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.Major, Richard Henry
History
Early Voyages to Terra Australis, Now Called Australia:: A Collection of Documents, and Extracts from Early Manuscript Maps, Illustrative of the History of Discovery on the Coasts of That Vast Island, from the Beginning of the Sixteenth Century to the Time of Captain Cook.
Major, Richard Henry
Australia -- Discovery and exploration; Discoveries in geography -- Portuguese; Voyages and travels
“On inspecting the map and examining the more southern regions, I
found that the island of Timor was the most southern land laid down
in lat. 10° S., which is its true situation; while further to the
south all was blank, excepting certain ornamental devices as far as
about latitude 17° or 18°, which was the lowest margin of the map.
To the west and east the map was bordered by a scale of latitude, in
single degrees; but this map did not occupy the whole sheet of
vellum, for to the right of the eastern scale of latitude something
else was laid down, viz., a line of coast running with a little
southing from west to east, with many rivers and names of places
upon it, and this notice underneath, ‘Esta Costa Descubrió Fernaō de
Magalhāes naturall portuges pormandado do emperador Carllos o anno
1520.’
“If the whole sheet is meant to constitute one map and referable to
the same scale of latitude, then the coast in question is not where
New Holland ought to be, being north of Timor and much too far to
the eastward. On turning over to the next sheet (in the atlas) there
is a similar line of coast laid down with precisely the same notice
(above quoted) at the bottom, and evidently a _continuation_ of the
same coast and upon the same scale. I send a list of the names,
which I have made out as well as I could, for they are very small
and several letters are not very clear.
“The reasons why I cannot consider this coast as part of New
Holland, are, 1st. It is at least one thousand five hundred miles in
length, and nearly straight as a whole, though indented in its
parts; 2ndly. That it is represented to have numerous rivers, which
are very rare in New Holland (on the coast); 3rdly. That it is
considerably distant from its true place to the south of Timor,
which in the atlas is laid down correctly as to latitude, although,
4thly. There is plenty of room for it on the map. I have thought it
might be part of the coast of South America, where Magelhaens was
long detained, and that it is put down as a sort of memorandum of
the great extent of coast which he discovered in the first
circumnavigation of the globe. With indomitable perseverance he
pushed his way through the straits that bear his name into the
Pacific, and in this vast ocean he sailed about for three months and
twenty days (says Pigafetta, who accompanied him and wrote an
account of the voyage) without discovering anything excepting two
small desert islands, until he arrived at the Phillippines. Had he
really discovered so much of the coast of a great southern
continent, Spain, in whose service he was, might well have boasted
of the feat, and Portugal, whose native he was, might have defended
the claims of the man who performed it, and not let so bold and
noble a discovery (for those times) remain so long in doubt.
* * * * *
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