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"Let the whole account," says Burney, "be reconsidered without prepossession, and the idea that will immediately and most naturally occur is that Southern India, discovered by De Gonneville, was Madagascar. The refusal of the crew to proceed to Eastern India would scarcely have happened if they had been so far advanced to the east as New Holland."
De Gonneville left Honfleur in the month of June of the year 1503, in the good ship L'ESPOIR, and after having rounded the Cape of Good Hope he was assailed by tempestuous weather and driven into calm latitudes. After a tedious spell of calm weather, want of water forced him to make for the first land he could sight.
"A claim has been set forth on behalf of a certain French sailor named De Gonneville, who is stated to have landed on the coast of Australia in 1503, but this claim can easily be dismissed, as there is little doubt that the country he describes is no other than the island of Madagascar."
But, however difficult it may seem to reconcile the account of De Gonneville with our general knowledge of the natives of Australia, the task is not so hopeless as at first sight may appear; and we shall crave the attention of the reader to the following description of the country and the inhabitants of that part of North-west Australia which surrounds the Glenelg. and Prince Regent and other rivers in their neighbourhood, discovered and visited for the first time by Captain King and Lieutenant, now Sir George, Grey, the latter exploring it to some distance inland in the year 1838.
One, which is the work of Guillaume Le Testu, a pilot of Dieppe, shows a portion of the coast in a fairly correct position, indicating features which can easily be recognised, although their longitude and latitude are not exact; the names, which are all in French, do not exhibit any sign of having been translated from any other language; and there is little doubt that Le Testu, who published this chart in 1536, must have heard of the expedition of De Gonneville, which could hardly have failed to attract attention at the time among the sailors of note in the ports of the Normandy coast.
It is evident that the land he sighted after three months' navigation could be no other than the Cape of Good Hope. Where, then, shall we look for this Southern India, for that fine river, at the mouth of which De Gonneville remained six months, and for that fine country which his companions explored in their journeys with the natives?
Before attempting to fix the position of the country visited by De Gonneville, it is necessary to refute here the various opinions expressed on the subject which refer to countries other than the Australian Continent.
Moreover, it may be the incentive for further exploration of the locality mentioned at some future time, with the view of solving the secrets of the strange carving and wonderful cave drawings, to which so much interest has been attracted. Most of the modern histories of Australia contain, with regard to the voyage of De Gonneville, the same stereotyped remarks:
De Gonneville, carried away by storms into unknown seas, lands on a coast which he estimates is situated to the south of India, and the Islands of Spices, and not far from the true course to the East Indies; at the entrance of a fine river, and in a fertile country, whose inhabitants he describes.
"Memorial for the establishment of a Christian mission in the third part of the world, or 'Terre Australe. Dedicated to His Holiness Pope Alexander VII., by a priest originating from that country." De Gonneville married him to one of his relatives, and the priest in question was the grandson of the "Australian," whose native name was "Essomeric."
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