Part 4 (1/2)

PLACE-NAMES.

It will not be necessary, I think, to give an elaborate description of the place-names that occur on this map; those who wish to know more about them may consult my larger work on ”The Discovery of Australia.”

We need not dwell either on those that are inscribed along the northern sh.o.r.es of Java, well-known to the Portuguese twenty years at least before these maps were made.

The southern sh.o.r.es of Java are joined to Australia, or, at least, only separated from it by a fict.i.tious river named Rio Grande, the Great River, which follows the sleek curve of the ”pig's back” described by D.

do Couto, the Portuguese historian.

In the Portuguese sphere some of the more salient features of the coast lines bear the following names:--

_Terre ennegade._ Ennegade has no possible meaning in French.

It is a corruption of Terra Anegada which means submerged land, or land over which the high tides flow considerably. It refers to a long stretch of sh.o.r.e at the entrance to King Sounds, where the tides cover immense tracts of country, and which has, in consequence, been called Shoal Bay.

_Baye Bresille;_ Brazil Bay, corresponds with King Sound.

The islands on the western coast, known as Houtman's Abrolhos,* and those near Sharks' Bay, are all charted with the reefs that surround them, although they bear no names on this map.

[* _Abrolhos_ is a Portuguese word applied to reefs; literally, it means ”open your eyes.”]

Lower down, there is a strange name, that has led to some stranger mistakes; it is LAMA, or LAME DE SYLLA, written HAME DE SILLE on another of these maps. It is a curious jumble that I have not been able to decipher; it occurs close to the mouth of the Swan River of modern charts.

Later French and Dutch map-makers took it for the name of an island in that locality.

Now, in those days, navigators and geographers were constantly in search of certain more or less fict.i.tious islands, among which, the ”Island of Men” and the ”Island of Women,” had been sought for in vain.

Could this be one of the lost islands? The old-fas.h.i.+oned letter s, resembling an f, made _Hame de sille_ look like _Hame de fille_, and a French geographer jumped at the conclusion that the word was _fille_, and that he had found the long lost island.

He called it accordingly _I. des Filles_,* Island of Girls. The Dutch translated the name on their charts where a _Meisje Eylandt_ may be seen; but, instead of the girls that they expected to see the island peopled with, they found it overrun by beautiful creatures, it is true, but, alas! of the small wallaby kind, peculiar to the outlying islands of Western Australia.

[* See Vangondy's map of Australia (1756).]

It goes without saying that they did not know of the term _wallaby_, and taking those pretty creatures for overgrown rats, they called the island Rat Island or Rat's Nest, and Rottnest is the Dutch form thereof, preserved to this day.

Let us now turn to the eastern sh.o.r.es of Australia, for we need not trouble about the southern sh.o.r.es as they are connected with the Antarctic continent.

We notice first, _Simbana_, one of the original names of the island of Sumbawa.

You will remember that there are several islands left out in Ribero's map [see pp. 28-29]. Now the princ.i.p.al one between Java and Timor is Sumbawa, and, strangely enough, we find that island grafted on here, and thus forming the northernmost part of York Peninsula, with Timor to the east of it in its actual position with reference to Sumbawa and smaller islands around, although out of place with reference to Australia. We next come to _Coste Dangereuse_, Dangerous Coast. It is situated in the locality of the Great Barrier Reef, not far from the spot where, nearly three hundred years later, Lieutenant Cook, in the _Endeavour_, was almost wrecked. The name speaks for itself; it appears along a coast lined with reefs, clearly shown on this map. _Baye Perdue_, Lost Bay, a broad bay with an island in mid-channel, the modern Broad Sound and Long Island. This name suggests a double voyage, a bay that was once discovered and could not be found again.*

[* Many years ago an old cannon, supposed to be of Spanish origin, was dug out of the sand a little to the south of Broad Sound, and near Port Curtis. It may be connected with this Lost Bay.]

_R. de beaucoup d'isles_; the letter R, in Spanish, meant either river or coast. This appellation refers to the locality of the Burnett river, where the coast is lined with numerous islands. The term may, therefore, mean either ”coast of many islands,” or ”river of many islands.” _Coste des Herbaiges_, Coast of Pastures; it has been suggested that this name gave rise to the term Botany Bay, chosen by Sir Joseph Banks,* instead of Stingeray Bay, given by Cook. The locality, however, corresponds to a stretch of coast further north than Botany Bay.

[* It will be remembered that this chart once belonged to Sir Joseph Banks. See above.]

CHAPTER VII.