Page:Early History of the Colony of Victoria by Francis Peter Labilliere.djvu/20

2 evidence which appeared to demonstrate that the Portuguese had reached the shores of Australia in 1601, five years before the Dutch yacht Duyphen, or Dove,—the earliest vessel whose name has been handed down—sighted, about March, 1606, what is believed to have been the coast near Cape York. Mr. Major, in a learned paper read before the Society of Antiquaries in 1872, indicated the probability that the first discovery was made "in or before the year 1531." The dates of two of the six maps from which Mr. Major derives his information are 1531 and 1542. The latter clearly indicates Australia, which is called Jave la Grande. New Zealand is also marked. The other maps, though without dates, doubtless relate to discoveries made a few years earlier. Mr. Major, in kindly explaining these interesting particulars to the author, also referred to a letter of Andrea Corsali, a Florentine, written in 1515, which leaves little doubt that Europeans had at that date got as far on the way to Australia as Banda, if not New Guinea. In a subsequent paper, in 1873—the original report of the pretented discoverer in 1601 having been found in Brussels—Mr. Major charges this Portuguese navigator, who claimed to have discovered, in 1601, a southern land in the position of Australia, with gross imposture; for he describes the country, which he calls Luça Antara, as containing many populous cities and towns, as abounding in gold, and with inhabitants addicted to cock-fighting.

Two of the six maps referred to by Mr. Major, as