[* See remark above.]

The great Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, described Java from hearsay as
being the largest island in the world, and the Portuguese finding this to
be incorrect, as far as their knowledge of Java proper was concerned, but
finding nevertheless, this "largest island in the world" to the
south-east of Java, in fact, approximately in the longitudes and
latitudes described by Polo; the Portuguese, I say, did the best thing
they could both for Marco Polo's sake and their own, when they marked it
on their charts where it was said to be, and with the name given to it by
Polo, for he calls it Java Major to distinguish it from Sumatra, which
island he named Java Minor.

The channel or river, marked between Java and Australia, is evidently a
concession due to the fact that a passage was known to exist. This
channel, which is left white in the chart I am describing, is painted
over in the specimen dated 1550 [see map pp. 68-69], as though it were
blocked, and two men are represented with pick and shovel as in the act
of cutting it open.

Curiously enough, in both maps, the upper silhouette of the landscape in
this part defines the real south shore of Java.

On the continental part, the Australian Alps, the range of hills on the
western and north-western coast, and the great sandy interior of
Australia, are also roughly sketched in. Was it all guess-work?

PLACE-NAMES.