though our men have been unable to pass through it owing to the shallows,
so that it remains uncertain whether this strait is open on the other
side."]

The Managers of the E.I.C. did not remain content with this first attempt
to obtain more light [*] as regards these regions situated to eastward,
the Southland-Nova Guinea as they styled it, using an appellation
characteristic of their degree of knowledge concerning it. But it was not
before 1623 that another voyage was undertaken that added to the
knowledge about the Gulf of Carpentaria: I mean the voyage of the ships
Pera and Arnhem, commanded by Jan Carstensz. and Willem Joosten van
Colstjor or Van Coolsteerdt. [**]

[* See pp. 6, 7-8, 13 and note 2 _infra_.]

[** See the Documents under No. XIV (pp. 21 ff.), and especially chart
No. 7 on p. 46.]

On this occasion, too, the south-west coast of New Guinea was first
touched at, after which the ships ran on on an eastern course. Torres
Strait was again left alongside, and mistaken for a Drooge bocht,[*]
"into which they had sailed as into a trap," and the error of New Guinea
and the present Australia constituting one unbroken whole, was in this
way perpetuated. The line of the east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria,
"the land of Nova Guinea", was then followed up to about 17° 8' (Staten
river), whence the return-voyage was undertaken [**]. Along this coast
various names were conferred. [***]

[* As regards the attempts to survey and explore this shallow water, see
_infra_ pp. 33-34]