want of the details and authorities upon which they had been laid down.
The old charts contained large islands lying off the coast, under the
names of _T' Hoog Landt_ or _Wessel's Eylandt_, and _Crocodils Eylanden_;
but of which little more was known than that, if they existed, they must
lie to the eastward of 135° from Greenwich. Of the R. Spult, and other
large streams represented to intersect the coast, the existence even was
doubtful. That the coast was dangerous, and shores sandy, seemed to be
confirmed by Mr McCluer's chart; and that they were peopled by "divers
cruel, poor, and brutal nations," was certainly not improbable, but it
rested upon very suspicious authority. The Instructions to Tasman. said,
in 1644, "Nova Guinea has been found to be inhabited by cruel, wild,
savages; and as _it is uncertain what sort of people the inhabitants of
the South Lands are_, it may be presumed that they are also wild and
barbarous savages, rather than a civilized people." This uncertainty,
with respect to the natives of Arnhem's and the northern Van Diemen's
Lands, remained, in a great degree, at the end of the eighteenth century.

Thus, whatever could bear the name of _exact_, whether in natural
history, geography, or navigation, was yet to be learned of a country
possessing five hundred leagues of sea-coast; and placed in a climate and
neighbourhood, where the richest productions of both the vegetable and
mineral kingdoms were known to exist. A voyage which should have had no
other view, than the survey of Torres' Strait and the thorough
investigation of the North Coast of Terra Australis, could not have been
accused of wanting an object worthy of national consideration.

PRIOR DISCOVERIES IN TERRA AUSTRALIS.

SECTION II.