Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/92

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lxviii
INTRODUCTION.

nautarum vulgus Tierra di Fuego vocant, alii Psittacorum Terram." In the map of Asia, in the same volume, a tract is laid down which, by comparison with Ortelius' map of the Pacific Ocean, is plainly New Guinea; and on both these maps, on the west coast of said tract, are the words, "Tierra baixa," which seems to tally with "Baie Basse," at about the corresponding point on the manuscript maps, and is confirmatory of the conclusion which the editor had formed, as stated on page xxvi. In the same volume is a map of the Antarctic hemisphere, in which the Terra Australis incognita is brought high up to the north in the longitude of Australia: on that part of it opposite the Cape of Good Hope is the following legend: "Lusitani bonæ spei legentes capitis promontorium, hanc terram austrum versus extare viderunt, sed nondum imploravere," a significant sentence, if allowance be made for the difficulty at that time of reckoning the longitude.

In the map to illustrate the voyages of Drake and Cavendish by Jodocus Hondius, of which a fac-simile was given in The World Encompassed by Sir Francis Drake, printed for our Society, New Guinea is made a complete island, without a word to throw a doubt on the correctness of the representation; while the Terra Australis, which is separated from New Guinea only by a strait, has an outline remarkably similar to that of the Gulf of Carpentaria. These indications give to this map an especial interest, and the more so that it is shown to be earlier than the passage of Torres through Torres' Straits in 1606, by its bear-