Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/76

 lii "Java la Grande," or the "Londe of Java," by a narrow channel, as shown in the maps here given, has no names which indicate any pretension to a survey. There is enough proximity between the two to suggest alike the possibility of a connection or of a separation of the two countries. In the absence of so many words, the maps show as plainly as possible that it was as yet an unsettled question. With this fact, therefore, before us, implying, as it does, both conscientiousness in the statements on the maps, and the confession of an imperfect survey of the whole of the coasts supposed to be laid down, we have no difficulty in giving credence to the pretension that the great southern land there represented was, with all its errors, a reality and not a fiction. In all fairness, therefore, we pass the question of junction between the little and the great Java, as a point virtually declared to be unsettled, and supposing the latter to be Australia, test our supposition by inquiring as to the correctness of the latitude in which the coast line terminates on the western side. Here again we find exact correctness. In the one (Rotz's map), the line ceases altogether at 35°, the real south-western point of Australia, and in the other at the same point all description ceases, and a meaningless line is drawn to the margin of the map, implying that no further exploration had been made. On the eastern side, we have in every respect greater inaccuracy; but for the present we deal only with the question of latitude. For the sake of convenience, our reduction of Rotz's map is made to terminate at