SIMBANA

This is not the Cape York Peninsula. It is the Cobourg Peninsula identified by the Tiwi Islands (Java) to the west and Croker Island to the east.

The maps show Croker Island as Flores with Timor Island adjacent. Their position and shape as shown could not be further from reality and must be dismissed as a cartographic quirk. The shape and location of Flores Island identifies with Croker Island while the island shown as Timor equates with the Grant Island group to the east of Croker Island.

It is here that another red herring emerges in that the small bay to the south of Croker Island equates in some writings with Princess Charlotte Bay on the north Queensland coast.

RIO GRANDE

This is a notional representation of the waters between the Tiwi Islands and the mainland (Van Dieman Gulf) and is identified by the notation “Anda ne Barcha” at its northern entrance (Dundas Strait) which translates as “Boats no go” which for the boats of the time was an appropriate warning.

Modern Sailing Directions for the Strait say “The tidal currents in Dundas Strait run with considerable strength during spring tides and cause strong tide rips and a dangerous race”. Of Van Dieman Gulf the same Directions say “The Gulf is heavily encumbered by reefs and shoals”. This may explain the notional representation, no one had yet seriously ventured inside for a detailed survey.

CAPE FREMOSE

This feature has been a thorn in the flesh of earlier writers whose east coast theories present it as an inexplicable protrusion to be ignored, dismissed as a cartographic quirk or allotted to some convenient feature like Cape Howe.

My faith in the maps is such that there must be a “local” explanation. The inlets on either side of the base sit well with the. Groote Eylandt complex on the east and Castlereagh Bay (Baie Neusne) on the west but missing from this projection are the Wessel Islands which are such a prominent feature and cannot be ignored in this debate.

For a sailor of those early years wishing to round this corner the Wessel Island group presented an impenetrable barrier because the high tidal flows can make the narrow passages between the islands unsafe for sailing boats even in the modern day. Modern Sailing Directions for the area make it clear boats of the time were best served by keeping clear and taking the long way round.

From the point of view of the cartographers of the time there would be little point in defining each island separately and I conclude they decided to lump together the Wessel group and the complex collection of islands around Cape Arnhem which has given us a neat and functional picture of a complex situation.

It is significant that in March 1803 when Matthew Flinders in HMS Investigator threaded his way through the Wessel Islands during his circumnavigation of Australia, Dutch charts he carried showed them as one long island called “Wessels Eylandt” thus highlighting their impenetrable nature.

As to the translation of the name it seems popular reasoning at the moment suggests it is “Beautiful/Handsome Cape” somehow derived from the Portuguese “Formosa” but I cannot live with what I see as a contrived conclusion. I cannot offer a solution other than to suggest it may be an old derivation from the French word “Fremir” to shudder, shake, tremble which may have some relevance to the sailing conditions of the area.

HAVRE DE SYLLA

I identify this feature as the estuary at the head of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf which contains the mouths of the Victoria and Fitzmaurice Rivers and I translate the name as “Crocodile Harbour”.

In explanation I invoke Greek mythology and the story of Scylla and Charybdis where Scylla is a man-eating monster who prowls one side of the Strait of Messina between the toe of Italy and Sicily while Charybdis occupies himself on the other side creating whirlpools and turbulent waters. The internet carries a multitude of spine-chilling portrayals of the scene.

At this point I have no doubt there are readers who think it ludicrous that I introduce Greek mythology into such a controversial subject which eminent scholars have debated at a much more profound level of reasoning.

In support of my contention I list below extracts from an article in the 2011 issue of Fishing World, “Wild River – The Fitzmaurice” which recounts a trip up the Fitzmaurice by a veteran fisherman-

“An epic journey up a wild river fraught with perils of rocky bars, whirlpools and giant crocs. This is the scariest and riskiest river I have ever been to. Fastest flowing river in the NT, on big spring tides flowing at speeds up to nine knots. There was a big tide boreing (sic)* through the rocks with whirlpools which could easily engulf a small boat. It was a ferocious beast of a river which could suck you in and spit you out. The river has a large population of salt water crocodiles”.

*A reference to the tidal bore phenomenon which affects this coast, the Daly River being a prime example.

Modern Sailing Directions for the area say that during the Wet the Victoria River becomes “a torrent”.

It is inevitable that the sailors of the time would have encountered many crocodiles and the correlation between the foregoing and the myth is obvious. I submit that a sailor surveying the scene could well have brought the myth to mind and I seriously submit this is not an improbable reason for the name. In my long experience of writing a history of the Whitsunday Islands I found naval surveyors are not averse to a bit of drollery in their namings.

LAME DE SYLLA

The Harleian map shows the same feature but with this different name.

The French word “Lame” translates first as “Blade” as in knife blade or flat strips of metal or wood but this does not sit well with the location. However the Cambridge and Larousse dictionaries and the Quebec Office of the French Language show there is a nautical translation meaning “A large wave, a billow, a breaking wave” and thus again the combination of troubled waters and a monster appears in the name though I cannot think of a succinct English version for it.

But this is not the end of the Lame story. Both maps show an island west of the western entrance to the Rio Grande where there is in fact no such island. However the Harleian map gives it a name “Isle de Lame” and I suggest this refers to the wide range of shoals, Newby Shoal, Flat Top Shoal etc which lie west and northwest of Darwin. Wave motion over them would differ from that over deeper waters and would have brought them to the notice of the sailors of the time.

R DE BEAUCOUP ISLES

River of many isles. It is notable that on the Dauphin map this naming runs parallel with the coast instead of running inland in the general course of the river concerned. A first impression is that an unusual number of islands must lie off the coast but that is not the case.

However it is significant that inland of the naming lie two of the most expansive wetlands in the Territory, the Liverpool/Blythe wetland complex named after the two rivers which drain it and there would be many “Isles” during the Wet in the inundated area. I suggest the naming as it is is to indicate not only a river but an expanse of water.

 BAYE PERDUE

While “Perdue” in French means “lost” it also means “obscured, hidden”. As shown in Google Earth this bay just north of the Aboriginal settlement of Maningrida has a northern headland which curls around to hide the bay from any one approaching from the north. The Harleian map shows this feature very clearly with an “Island” in its centre which in fact is a shoal area. The modern name for the bay is “Junction Bay”

BAYE BRESILLE

This bay on the northwest of the maps has the notation “Terre Ennegade” which translates as flooding land which, taken in conjunction with its location in the map identifies it with Anson Bay and the Daly River with its iconic tidal bore phenomenon.  As to the name it possibly is a mis-spelling of the French word “Brasille” which translates as the brilliant pathway of light across the sea when the sun’s rays strike it obliquely.  This effect is spectacularly displayed along the West Australian coastline from Darwin to. Broome including Anson Bay during sunsets across the Indian Ocean.

COSTE BLANCHE

Google Earth shows this feature on the shore of Fossil Head near the airstrip but the Internet carries an aerial view with the description “Abutting the western end of the head is a one hundred metre long beach. It is a narrow high tide cobble beach fronted by a two hundred metre wide section of intertidal sand then a one hundred metre wide mud flats.

COSTE DANGEREUSE

This coast is no more dangerous than any other coast in the area. Other writers have suggested it may be a mis-translation from Portuguese to French by the Dieppe map-makers.

ISLE DE NIEGE (Snow)

The Harleian map shows on the west coast an island with the name “de Niege”. Position-wise this equates with Dorcherty Island which Google Earth shows as having white rock formations clearly visible on it.

BAYE DES YLES

This inlet on the southwest of the Harleian near the northern headland of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf shows on Google Earth as containing a number of tidal islets.

QUABESEGMESCE

The Harleian shows this strange name in the southwest of the map but its meaning and relevance is a continuing puzzle for researchers. In various writings about it the spelling varies according to how the writer perceives sometimes obscure printing of names on ancient maps and sometimes it shows as two words, for example “Quabe Segmesce”.

A most interesting discourse on this subject is contained in an article in the Skeptic Vol 19 No1 by respected writer W A R (Bill) Richardson, fluent in Spanish and Portuguese, who taught Spanish and Portuguese and Brazilian Studies at the Flinders University in Adelaide until his retirement in 1987.

He suggests that the first word could be “Quabeb – Cubeb in English – a spice obtainable exclusively in in the western third of Java” while the second word could be a corruption of the Portuguese “Aqui esta” which means “is here”. This spice (Piper Cubeba) today passes under the name “Tailed Pepper” or “Java Pepper” and was no doubt one of the spices the Portuguese sought in the sixteenth century for European markets.

In my reasoning the location of the name on the map equates with a distinctive estuarine complex shown by Google Earth on the north shore of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf which is drained by the Kulshill Creek.

The significance of the naming now becomes apparent because the Northern Territory Government’s online Virtual Herbarium shows that the Pepper “Piper Macropiper” is widespread in the Northern Territory including “Kulshill Creek near Wadeye”. While the name differs the point is that a spice is native to the area. This is clear evidence that the Portuguese visited this area in their search for spices and is compelling evidence that they were the first Europeans to set foot on Australian soil.

 GONFFIE/GONSSIE ??

This feature appears on both maps at the southeast corner with the Harleian providing good detail which identifies it as the Groote Eylandt complex. 

 

COSTE BRACQ

The surname “Bracq” appears readily in Google as various businesses throughout Europe including  Portugal. Perhaps some commercial relationship with the Spice trade in earlier years?