The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea Part 1

The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea.

by George Collingridge.

INTRODUCTION.

The discovery of a continental island like Australia was not a deed that could be performed in a day. Many years pa.s.sed away, and many voyages to these sh.o.r.es of ours were undertaken by the leading maritime nations of Europe, before the problematic and mysterious TERRA AUSTRALIS INCOGNITA of the ancients became known, even in a summary way, and its insularity and separation from other lands positively established.

We must not be astonished, therefore, at the strange discrepancies that occur in early charts and narratives, for it took time to realize how different portions of our coast lines, which had been sighted from time to time might be connected, and how the gaps might be filled in by fresh discoveries and approximate surveys.

The question as to who first sighted Australia, and placed on record such discovery, either in the shape of map or narrative, will, in all probability, ever remain a mystery.

However, that such a record was made appears evident when we consider certain early charts, follow carefully the testimony which the evolution of Australian cartography affords, and take cognisance of various descriptive pa.s.sages to be found in old authors.

These pa.s.sages will be given here in connection with the old charts, and followed up by the narratives of voyages in search of the "Great South Land."

The numerous maps and ill.u.s.trations have been carefully selected; they will greatly help the student towards understanding these first pages of the history of Australia.

GEORGE COLLINGRIDGE.

THE FIRST DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW GUINEA.

CHAPTER I.

IN QUEST OF THE SPICE ISLANDS.

"And the New South rose with her forehead bare-- Her forehead hare to meet the smiling sun-- Australia in her golden panoply; And far off Empires see her work begun, And her large hope has compa.s.sed every sea."

--SIR GILBERT PARKER.

What was the relative position of European nations in the arena of maritime discovery at the beginning of the sixteenth century?

Portugal was then mistress of the sea.

Spain, too, indulging in an awakening yawn, was clutching with her outstretched hands at the shadowy treasure-islands of an unfinished dream.

England had not yet launched her navy; Holland had not built hers.

Portugal had already buried a king--the great grandson of Edward III. of England--whose enterprise had won for him the name of Henry the Navigator.

Slowly and sadly--slowly always, sadly often--his vessels had crept down the west coast of Africa; little by little one captain had overstepped the distance traversed by his predecessor, until at last in 1497 a successful voyager actually rounded the Cape.

Then Portugal, clear of the long wall that had fenced her in on one side for so many thousands of miles, trod the vast expanse of waters to the east, and soon began to plant her flag in various ports of the Indian Ocean. [See Portuguese flags on Desliens' Map.]

Pushing on further east in search of the Spice Islands, she found Sumatra, Borneo, the Celebes, Java, Timor, Ceram, the Aru Islands and Gilolo; she had reached the famous and much coveted Moluccas, or Spice Islands, and set to work building forts and establishing trading stations in the same way as England is doing nowadays in South Africa and elsewhere.*

[* In a chart of the East Indian Archipelago, drawn probably during the first Portuguese voyages to the Spice Islands (1511-1513), the island of Gilolo is called Papoia. Many of the islands situated on the west and north-west coast of New Guinea became known to the Portuguese at an early date, and were named collectively OS PAPUAS. The name was subsequently given to the western parts of New Guinea. Menezes, a Portuguese navigator, is said to have been driven by a storm to some of these islands, where he remained awaiting the monsoonal change.]

Meanwhile the Spaniards, after the discovery of America by Columbus, were pursuing their navigations and explorations westward with the same object in view, and it soon dawned upon them that a vast ocean separated them from the islands discovered by the Portuguese.

Magellan was then sent out in search of a westerly pa.s.sage; he reached the regions where the Portuguese had established themselves, and disputes arose as to the limits of the Portuguese and Spanish boundaries.

Pope Alexander VI. had generously bestowed one-half of the undiscovered world upon the Spanish, and the other half upon the Portuguese, charging each nation with the conversion of the heathen within its prospective domains.

Merely as a fact this is interesting enough, but viewed in the light of subsequent events it a.s.sumes a specific importance.

The actual size of the earth was not known at the time, and this division of Pope Alexander's, measured from the other side of the world, resulted in an overlapping and duplicate charting of the Portuguese and Spanish boundaries in the longitudes of the Spice Islands,* an overlapping due, no doubt, princ.i.p.ally to the desire of each contending party to include the Spice Islands within its own hemisphere, but also to the fact that the point of departure which had been fixed in the vicinity of the Azores, was subsequently removed westward as far as the mouth of the Amazons.

If Portugal and Spain had remained to the present day in possession of their respective hemispheres, the first arrangement would have given Australia and New Guinea to Portugal; whereas the second arrangement would have limited her possessions at the longitude that separates Western Australia from her sister States to the east, which States would have fallen to the lot of Spain. Strange to say, this line of demarcation still separates Western Australia from South Australia so that those two States derive their boundary demarcation from Pope Alexander's line.

A few years after the discovery of the New World the Spanish Government found it necessary, in order to regulate her navigations, and ascertain what new discoveries were being made, to order the creation of an official map of the world, in the composition of which the skill and knowledge of all her pilots and captains were sought.

Curiously enough, as it may appear, there is an open sea where the Australian continent should be marked on this official map.

Are we to infer that no land had been sighted in that region?

Such a conclusion may be correct, but we must bear in mind that prior to the year 1529, when this map was made,* the Spaniards had sailed along 250 leagues of the northern sh.o.r.es of an island which they called the _Island of Gold_, afterwards named New Guinea, and yet there are no signs of that discovery to be found on the Spanish official map. It is evident, therefore, that this part of the world could not have been charted up to date. This is not extraordinary, for it was not uncommon in those days, nor was it deemed strange that many years should elapse before the results of an expedition could be known at head-quarters. In order to realise the nature of the delays and difficulties to be encountered, nay, the disasters and sufferings to be endured and the determination required for the distant voyages of the period, we have but to recall the fate of Magellan's and Loaysa's expeditions.

[* See the Ribero Map.]

Those navigators were sent out in search of a western pa.s.sage to the Spice Islands, and with the object of determining their situation.

Of the five vessels which composed Magellan's squadron, one alone, the _Victoria_, performed the voyage round the world.

The _S. Antonio_ deserted in the Straits which received Magellan's name, seventy odd of the crew returning to Spain with her.

The _Santiago_ was lost on the coast of Patagonia.

The _Concepcion_, becoming unfit for navigation, was abandoned and burnt off the island of Bohol, in the St. Lazarus Group, afterwards called the Philippines.

The _Trinidad_ was lost in a heavy squall in Ternate Roads, and all hands made prisoners by the Portuguese. Many of them died, and, years after, only four of the survivors reached their native sh.o.r.es.

The _Victoria_, after an absence of three years all but twelve days, returned to Spain with thirty-one survivors out of a total crew of two hundred and eighty. The remaining one hundred and sixty or seventy had perished. It is true that some of those shared the fate of Magellan, and were killed in the war undertaken in the Philippines to help their allies.

The fate of Loaysa's armada was still more disastrous. A short description of it will be given in the next chapter.

Notwithstanding all these drawbacks, the period was one of great maritime activity, and many unauthorised and clandestine voyages were also performed, in the course of which Australia may have been discovered, for the western and eastern coasts were charted before the year 1530, as we shall see by and by.

CHAPTER II.

VOYAGES TO THE SPICE ISLANDS AND DISCOVERY OF PAPUA.