confirmed by Captain Tasman's voyage, that the importance of it may fully
appear, as well as the probability of our conjectures with regard to the
motives that induced the Dutch East India Company to be at so much pains
about these discoveries.



CHAPTER XX: CONSEQUENCES OF CAPTAIN TASMAN'S DISCOVERIES.


In the first place, then, it is most evident, from Captain Tasman's
voyage, that New Guinea, Carpentaria, New Holland, Antony van Diemen's
Land, and the countries discovered by De Quiros, make all one continent,
from which New Zealand seems to be separated by a strait; and, perhaps,
is part of another continent, answering to Africa, as this, of which we
are now speaking, plainly does to America. This continent reaches from
the equinoctial to 44 degrees of south latitude, and extends from 122
degrees to 188 degrees of longitude, making indeed a very large country,
but nothing like what De Quiros imagined; which shows how dangerous a
thing it is to trust too much to conjecture in such points as these. It
is, secondly, observable, that as New Guinea, Carpentaria, and New
Holland, had been already pretty well examined, Captain Tasman fell
directly to the south of these; so that his first discovery was Van
Diemen's Land, the most southern part of the continent on this side the
globe, and then passing round by New Zealand, he plainly discovered the
opposite side of that country towards America, though he visited the
islands only, and never fell in again with the continent till he arrived
on the coast of New Britain, which he mistook for that of New Guinea, as
he very well might; that country having never been suspected to be an
island, till Dampier discovered it to be such in the beginning of the