Sumatra. It is observable that Petan and Maletur, names occurring on or near the Terra Australis of other maps of about this date, occur here, but close under Java Minor, which is a long way to the west of the "Meridional discoperta novamente."
In 1526 the Portuguese commander, Don Jorge de Meneses, in his passage from Malacca to the Moluccas, was carried by currents and through his want of information respecting the route, to the north coast of Papua, which we now know as New Guinea; and in the following year we find Don Alvaro de Saavedra, a Spaniard, and kinsman of the great Cortes, despatched from New Spain to the Moluccas, and also lighting on New Guinea, where he passed a month; but nowhere in the allusions to these voyages do we find reference to the great southern land, which is laid down with so much detail under the name of "La Grande Jave."
Our surmises, therefore, lead us to regard it as highly probable that Australia was discovered by the Portuguese between the years 1511 and 1529, and, almost to a demonstrable certainty, that it was discovered before the year 1542.
A notion may be formed of the knowledge possessed by the Spaniards in the middle of the sixteenth century, on the part of the world on which we treat, from the following extract from a work entitled, "El libro de las costumbres de todas las gentes del mundo y de las Indias." Translated and compiled by the Bachelor Francisco Themara. Antwerp, 1556. "Thirty leagues from Java the Less is Gatigara,
