[* See No. XXI (p. 54) below.]

[** See, however, No. XXI., C. _infra_.]

In Gerritsz's chart of 1627, as well as in the so-called 1618 one, we are
struck by the fact, that on the west-coast the coast-line shows breaks in
various places: De Witt's land is not connected with the coast of
Willems-rivier; the coast-line of Eendrachtsland does not run on; there
is uncertainty as regards what is now called Shark-bay; the coast facing
Houtmans Abrolhos is a conjectural one only; the coast-line facing
Tortelduyf is even altogether wanting; Dedelsland and 't Land van de
Leeuwin are not marked by unbroken lines. This fragmentary knowledge
sufficiently accounts for the fact, that about the middle of the
seventeenth century navigators were constantly faced by the problem of
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
the present Perth, were