f the existence of such a
land at the European antipodes no doubt set many ardent and
adventurous spirits upon the search, but of their exploits and labours
we know nothing.

The Dutch were the most eager in their attempts, although Torres, a
Spaniard, was, so far as we know, the first to pass in a voyage from
the West Coast of America to India, between the Indian or Malay
Islands, and the great continent to the south, hence we have Torres
Straits. The first authentic voyager, however, to our actual shores
was Theodoric Hertoge, subsequently known as Dirk Hartog--bound from
Holland to India. He arrived at the western coast between the years
1610 and 1616. An island on the west coast bears his name: there he
left a tin plate nailed to a tree with the date of his visit and the
name of his ship, the Endragt, marked upon it. Not very long after
Theodoric Hertoge, and still to the western and north-western coasts,
came Zeachern, Edels, Nuitz, De Witt, and Pelsart, who was wrecked
upon Houtman's Albrolhos, or rocks named by Edels, in his ship the
Leewin or Lion. Cape Leewin is called after this vessel. Pelsart left
two convicts on the Australian coast in 1629. Carpenter was the next
navigator, and all these adventurers have indelibly affixed their
names to portions of the coast of the land they discovered. The next,
and a greater than these, at least greater in his navigating
successes, was Abel Janz Tasman, in 1642. Tasman was instructed to
inquire from the native inhabitants for Pelsart's two convicts, and to
bring them away with him, IF THEY ENTREATED HIM; but they were never
heard of again. Tasman sailed round a great portion of the Australian
coast, discovered what he named Van Diemen's land, now Tasmania, and
New Zealand. He it was who called the whole, believing it to be one,
New Holland, after the land of his birth. Next we have Dampier, an
English buccaneer--though the name sounds very like Dutch; it was
probably by chance only that he and his roving crew visited these
shores. Then came Wilhelm Vlaming with three ships. God save the mark
to call such things ships. How the men performed the feats they did,
wandering over vast and unknown oceans, visiting unknown coasts with
iron-bound shores, beset with sunken reefs, subsisting on food not fit
for human beings, suffering from scurvy caused by salted diet and
rotten biscuit, with a short allowance of water, in torrid zones, and
liable to be attacked and killed by host