becoming "Golfe Bonaparte," and the Gulf of St. Vincent "Golfe
Josephine." Malte Brun remarks:--

"The claims of the English have no fixed boundaries; they seem desirous
of confounding the whole of New Holland under the modern name which they
have given to the east coast, which was minutely explored by Captain
Cook. It is worthy of remark that the French geographers had, from a
comparison of the tracks navigated by Abel Tasman, previously concluded
on the existence and direction of this coast itself."

But neither Dutch nor French claims were ever seriously advanced, and the
whole of the continent and adjacent islands were ceded to the English in
much the same happy-go-lucky fashion that we recently let slip a large
portion of New Guinea. One cause of the apathy displayed was without
doubt the forbidding nature of the reports published by all the
navigators. The coast line had been examined, and the various inlets
followed up without any important or navigable river having been brought
to light, and the absence of fresh water streams in such a large
continent naturally led thinking men to the conclusion that the inland
slope was nothing but an arid desert, parched beneath a rainless sky. The
hot winds that had been experienced on the southern coast aided this
belief, and the natives when interviewed professed no knowledge beyond
the limits of their tribal hunting grounds. The little colony clustered
around Rose Hill, and on the shore of Sydney Cove, was shut in by the
gloomy gorges and unscaleable precipices of the Caermarthen Hills, that
stayed all progress to the westward, and the same frowning barrier had
been found to extend north and south.

Men's imaginations were exhausted in picturing the physical appearance of
the mysterious interior. Some thought it a vast level plain, where the