On the 18th of May, in the latitude of 26 minutes south and in the
longitude of 147 degrees 55 minutes, we observed the variation to be
5 degrees 30 minutes east. We were now arrived at the western
extremity of New Guinea, which is a detached point or promontory
(though it is not marked so even in the latest maps); here we met
with calms, variable and contrary winds, with much rain; from thence
we steered for Ceram, leaving the Cape on the north, and arrived
safely on that island; by this time Captain Tasman had fairly
surrounded the continent he was instructed to discover, and had
therefore nothing now farther in view than to return to Batavia, in
order to report the discoveries he had made.
On the 27th of May we passed through the straits of Boura, or
Bouton, and continued our passage to Batavia, where we arrived on
the 15th of June, in the latitude of 6 degrees 12 minutes south, and
in the longitude of 127 degrees 18 minutes. This voyage was made in
the space of ten months. Such was the end of this expedition, which
has been always considered as the clearest and most exact that was
ever made for the discovery of the Terra Australis Incognita, from
whence that chart and map was laid down in the pavement of the
stadt-house at Amsterdam, as is before mentioned. We have now
nothing to do but to shut up this voyage and our history of
circumnavigators, with a few remarks, previous to which it will be
requisite to state clearly and succinctly the discoveries, either
made or confirmed by Captain Tasman's voyage, that the importance of
it may fully appear, as well as the probability of our conjectures
with regard to the motives that induced the Dutch East India Company
to be at so much pains about these discoveries.
CHAPTER XX: CONSEQUENCES OF CAPTAIN TASMAN'S DISCOVERIES.
In the first place, then, it is most evident, from Captain Tasman's
voyage, that New Guinea, Carpentaria, New Holland, Antony van
Diemen's Land, and the countries discovered by De Quiros, make all
one continent, from which New Zealand seems to be separated by a
strait; and, perhaps, is part of another continent, answering to
Africa, as this, of which we are now speaking, plainly does to
America. This continent reaches from the equinoctial to 44 degrees
of south latitude, and extends from 122 degrees to 188 degrees of
longitude, making indeed a very large country, but nothing like what
De Quiros imagined; which shows how dangerous a thing it is to trust
too much to conjecture in such points as these. It is, secondly,
observable, that as New Guinea, Carpentaria, and New Holland, had
been already pretty well examined, Captain Tasman fell directly to
the south of these; so that his first discovery was Van Diemen's
Land, the most southern part of the continent on this side the
globe, and then passing round by New Zealand, he plainly discovered
the opposite side of that country towards America, though he visited
the islands only, and never fell in again with the continent till he
arrived on the coast of New Britain, which he mistook for that of
New Guinea, as he very well might; that country having never been
suspected to be an island, till Dampier discovered it to be such in
the beginning of the present century.
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