the real character of the South-land: was it one vast continent or a
complex of islands? And the question would not have been so repeatedly
asked, if the line of the west-coast had been more accurately known.

{Page xii}

Tasman and Visscher [*] did a great deal towards the solution of this
problem, since in their voyage of 1644 they also skirted and mapped out
the entire line of the West-coast of what since 1644 has borne the name
of Nieuw-Nederland, Nova Hollandia, or New Holland, from Bathurst Island
to a point south of the Tropic of Capricorn. In this case also certain
mistakes were committed: they failed, for instance, to recognise the real
character of Bathurst Island, which, like Melville Island, they looked
upon as forming part of the mainland; but if we make due allowance for
the imperfection of their means of observation, we are bound to say that
the coast-line has by them been mapped out with remarkable accuracy [**].

[* I pass by certain other exploratory voyages on the westcoast (see e.g.
No. XXIV. _infra_, etc.).]

[** Cf. Tasman's chart of 1644 in the Tasman Folio.]

About fifteen years after the west-coast was more accurately mapped out
also, to the south of the tropic of Capricorn. In the year 1658 Samuel
Volekersen with the ship de Wakende Boei [Floating Buoy], and Aucke
Pieters Jonck with the ship Emeloord surveyed a portion of the
west-coast, and the charts then made have been preserved [*]. The
coast-line from a point near the Tortelduyf down to past Rottenest (the
large island on which Volkertsen did not confer a name, preferring to
"leave the naming to the pleasure of the Hon. Lord Governor-General") and