[** See p. 37 below.]

[*** As regards this, see especially the chart on p. 46.--Cf. my Life of
Tasman, pp. 99-100.]

In the course of the same expedition discovery was also made of
Arnhemsland on the west-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria, and almost
certainly also of the so-called Groote Eyland or Van der Lijns island
(Van Speultsland) [*] The whole of the southern part of the gulf
remained, however, unvisited.

[* See my Life of Tasman, pp. 101-102; and pp. 47-48 below.]

{Page vii}

The honour of having first explored this part of the gulf in his second
famous voyage of 1644 is due to our countryman Abel Janszoon Tasman
together with Frans Jacobszoon Visscher and his other courageous
coadjutors in the ships Limmen Zeemeeuw and Brak. [*] Abel Tasman's
passagie [course] of 1644 lay again along the south-west coast of New
Guinea; again also Tasman left unsolved the problem of the passage
through between New Guinea and Australia: Torres Strait was again
mistaken for a bay. The east-coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria was next
further explored, and various new names were conferred especially on
rivers on this coast, which most probably got the name of Carpentaria
about this time; of the names then given a great many continue to figure
in modern maps. After exploring the east-coast, Tasman turned to the
south-coast of the gulf. In this latter case the results of the
exploration proved to be less trustworthy afterwards. Thus Tasman mistook