THE FIRST MAP OF NEW GUINEA.
Had the Portuguese and Spanish known the map of New Guinea as we know it
nowadays they would, no doubt, have described it as a Guinea fowl, Bird
of Paradise or some such creature, as delineated above, in the same way
as they described Java and other islands in these seas.*
[* Celebes was likened to a spider, Ceram to a caterpillar, etc., etc.]
The map of Nova Guinea, shows, however, that their ideas were like all
original ideas concerning shapes of countries--imperfect.
Nevertheless, some of the principal features of the Portuguese and
Spanish discoveries in Papuas and New Guinea, up to the year 1545, are
clearly discernible.*
[* The original Portuguese and Spanish documents that were used in the
compilation of this map have been lost or have not yet come to light. Our
copy dates from the year 1600.]
It will be noticed that Gilolo is now placed in its correct position,
twenty degrees to the west of where it was placed before in Ribero's map.
It is now in the Portuguese sphere where it should be.
The Portuguese discoveries in New Guinea occupy what might be described
as the fowl's head and neck. They come under the name of OS PAPUAS, and
the islands where Menezes is said to have sojourned--_hic hibernavit
Georg de Menezes_--in the year 1526.
The three nameless large islands, between Os Papuas and Nova Guinea
represent, no doubt, the Misory Islands and Jobi of modern charts.
The Aru Islands are also charted, and the Tenimber or Timor Laut group is
indicated (although it bears no name) as having been the sojourn of
Martin Alfonso de Melo,* a Portuguese navigator, whose name has not been
otherwise recorded, as far as I know, in the history of maritime
discovery in these parts.
[* _Martin afonso de mela_, on the chart.]
SPANISH SPHERE.
The Spanish portion commemorates the expedition of Inigo Ortiz de Retez
with Gaspar Rico, in the _San Juan_, in the year 1545; some of the names
being the _Rio de S. Augustino_; the island of Ortiz, _I de Arti_; the
port of Gaspar Rico and the _I. S. Juan_, named after their little ship;
the cape named _Ancon de la Natividad de Nustra Siniora_, being the term
of their voyage which, according to Juan Gaetan, one of Villalobos'
pilots, who wrote a description of it, extended to six or seven degrees
of south latitude, must represent the modern Cape King William, or
thereabouts.