Page:History of Australia, Rusden 1897.djvu/32

 Spain, to Portugal, to Holland there remain possessions of questionable value (excepting Java, once taken and restored by the English), and none of them are adapted for European constitutions. To the descendants of the seafaring Northmen has fallen a continent, poor when found, but capable of making rich; holding out no luxuries for barter, but having a climate and soil which invite the re-enactment in Australia of the marvel in America, where the colony largely outnumbers the parent state.

It is perhaps impossible to determine who first ascertained the existence and form of the Great South Land. Those who are curious upon the subject will find it exhaustively dealt with in various publications by E. H. Major, F.S.A.,, and others. There are not wanting statements which would imply that something was known about the north coast of Australia in the beginning of the sixteenth century. But in most cases the descriptions and the maps indicated no separation between New Guinea and the South Land, generally called "La Grande Jave." Moreover, with regard to a time when the Spanish and the Portuguese contended about their discoveries, the best of their maps are so wide of the truth that it may safely be afl&rmed that some of their contents are guesses. That the Portuguese were established at the Moluccas in 1512 seems to be admitted. That there were maps which were made before the year 1542, and which represent a great land called "Jave La Grande," is also true. One of these maps in the British Museum was presented by Sir Joseph Banks in 1790. Two others, also in the Museum, are in a volume, dated 1542, presented by one Jean Eotz to Henry VIII. The dedication declares that the maps are made "au plus certain et vray qu'il ma est, possible de faire, tant par mon experience propre, que par la certaine experience de mes amys et compagnons navigateurs." In all these maps, however, the sea or strait between "The Lytil Java" and "Java La Grande," or "the Londe of Java," is so inaccurately represented that one sees at a glance that guess-work, or assumption, or hearsay, was resorted to. In the Jean Rotz map of 1542, the east shore of Jave la Grande (the Great South Land) is