ving no other documentary evidence except these old charts, the first
conclusion drawn was that as they are all written in French, the French
were the discoverers in spite of the fact that no French claim had been
made.

The late R. H. Major, the author of "Early Voyages to. Australia," having
thoroughly considered the possibility of a French claim, came to the
conclusion that such a claim was untenable. Being somewhat shaken,
however, in his first belief of a Portuguese discovery, he was led to
adopt a Provencal theory to explain certain words which on these old
Gallicized charts, were neither Portuguese nor French. The whole subject
was in this state of incertitude and confusion, when, a few years ago,
having occasion to examine minutely these old documents, I discovered on
the oldest of them a phrase in Portuguese, which, curiously enough, had
escaped the notice of all the learned critics who had made a special
study of this early specimen of cartography.

The phrase I had discovered, "_Anda ne barcha_," or "No boats go here,"
situated as it is in the Gulf of Carpentaria, had, in my mind, a very
great significance, since it not only proves the Portuguese origin of the
chart, but also the genuineness of the discovery made in that as it
showed that the discoverers were fully aware of the shallowness of the
water off this part of the coast of Australia.

It must be admitted however, that on the original chart the nautical
phrase "_Anda ne barcha_," may refer to the difficulty of navigating the
strait between Java and Bali, or the one between Bali and Lomboc.

When I say that this phrase proves the Portuguese origin of the chart, I
do not mean to convey the idea that I accepted it, there and then, as a
proof of Portuguese origin, but I rather took it as a clue, for the
meaning of those words had evidently not been understood by the copyist,
since he had left them in their original form, instead of translating
them into French, and had mistaken them for the names of two islands.

This clue led me to make a special study of every word on the chart that
had proved so interesting, the result being that I came to the conclusion
that the western coasts of Australia had been chartered by the
Portuguese, whereas the eastern coasts, which fell within the hemisphere
allotted to the Spaniards, had been discovered and charted by them.

If we take for granted--and I think we may--that these charts are
unquestionably of Portugues