name
which Tasman gave to the Bay is still retained by the colonists. After
spending eleven days on the coast, and erecting a post with the Dutch
East India Company's mark on it, Tasman departed tor Batavia, sailing
along the south coast, without suspecting it to be an island, and then
proceeded to the eastward.
In
1644, Tasman was despatched on a second voyage, with instructions,
that after passing the coast of Arnhem, in 17° south latitude, he
should follow the coast westward or southward, in order to ascertain
whether it was divided from the "great known south land," or not. From the expression "known" it
is evident that the Dutch had acquired considerable knowledge of
Australian hydrography on the north and north-west coasts. In pursuance
of these instructions, Tasman entered the Gulf of Carpentaria, where he
was, of course, stopped by the land at the bottom. He, however, sailed
round it, and his track is to this day indicated by the names which he
applied to the different points met with, viz :—those of the
Governor-General, of two of the Council, and of Maria, the daughter of
the Governor-General, to whom he was attached. No account of this
voyage of Tasman has ever been published, so that we have no further
means of ascertaining what discoveries he made. Those which we do know,
with the exception of Van Diemen's Land and New Zealand, are scarcely
worthy of the fame usually accorded to him,—since, as we have seen, he
had abundant information at his command, and this had chiefly been
obtained from expeditions fitted out by Dutch settlers in India, and
from the outward-bound vessels which had so long been obtaining an
accurate knowledge of the western coasts.
Upwards
of a century now elapsed before any other national expedition was sent
out for the purposes of Austral discovery. The fact of the existence of
the " Great South Land" had been established, though nothing whatever
was known of its inhabitants or productions; and with this mere
hydrographical knowledge, all parties, even the Dutch, appear to have
remained
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