The name "Australia," now universally adopted to designate the whole island-continent, was suggested by the gallant, unfortunate, and ill-requited Flinders, in his "Account of a Voyage of Discovery to Terra Australis," a work from which almost all writers on Australian geography have copied their outlines of the progress of discovery, previous to the voyage of Captain Cook.
The Dutch, who first explored the whole northern coast, called it New Holland in their own language. Captain Cook, after sailing round the south-eastern coast, gave it the name of New South Wales, from a supposed resemblance to that part of Great Britain, and by that name the whole island was known in English works until other settlements were formed. But colloquially, until very recently, Botany Bay, the first landing-place of Captain Cook, was vulgarly and popularly the designation given to Australia, although no settlement was ever formed there; and it remains to this day a swampy suburb, about an hour's ride from Sydney, from which part of the water for the supply of that city is obtained, and where idlers resort, to drink, smoke, and play quoits.
Port Phillip, the name first given to the great bay on which are the ports of Geelong and Melbourne,[1] after Captain Phillip, first governor of New South Wales, has been applied to the whole province; and although, by the act of Parliament which created it a separate colony, the name of Victoria has been affixed to this region, it will be long before the old inhabitants will remember or consent to give any other name than Port Phillip to the district which Sir Thomas Mitchell endeavoured, not without reason, to designate as Australia Felix.
The act of Parliament that created the third colony fixed upon it the vague name of South Australia.
Official and parliamentary documents have superseded the original name of Swan River by Western Australia. Van Diemen's Land retains its old Dutch name, although also occasionally more conveniently known as Tasmania.
Dutch, Spanish, and English have succeeded in affixing nominal marks of their discoveries on Australia, which is almost the last country peopled by an European race; but the French, in spite of efforts of great pains and cost, have been generally superseded, although at one time they had appropriated all the discoveries of Matthew Flinders. The earliest authentic records of the discovery of any part of Australia are Spanish. The traces supposed to be found by some
- ↑ Melbourne stands on the Yarra Yarra River, navigable by steamers of two hundred tons, Larger vessels lie off its mouth, in Hobson'e Bay.
