fitting medium of information[*]. So much to account for the bilingual
character of the jubilee publication now offered to the reader.

[* The English translation is the work of Mr. C. Stoffel, of Nijmegen.]

Closely connected with this consideration is another circumstance which
has influenced the mode of treatment followed in the preparation of this
work. The defective acquaintance with the Dutch language of those who
have made the history of the discovery of Australia the object of serious
study, or even, in the case of some of them, their total ignorance of it,
certainly appears to me one, nay even the most momentous of the causes of
the incomplete knowledge of the subject we are discussing; but it cannot
possibly be considered the only cause, if we remember that part of the
documentary evidence proving the share of the Netherlanders in the
discovery of Australia has already been given to the world through the
medium of a leading European tongue.

In 1859 R. H. MAJOR brought out his well-known book _Early Voyages to
Terra Australis, now called Australia_, containing translations of some
of the archival pieces and of other documents pertaining to the subject.
And though, from P. A. LEUPE'S work, entitled _De Reizen der Nederlanders
naar het Juidland of Nzeuw-Holland in de 17e en 18e eeuw_, published in
1868, and from a book by L. C. D. Van Dijk, brought out in the same year
in which MAJOR'S work appeared, and entitled _Twee togten naar de golf
van Carpentaria_; though, I say, from these two books it became evident
that MAJOR'S work was far from complete, still it cannot be denied that
he had given a great deal, and what he had given, had in the English
translation been made accessible also to those to whom Dutch was an
unknown tongue. This circumstance could not but make itself felt in my
treatment of the subject, since it was quite needless to print once more