If Portugal and Spain had remained to the present day in possession of their respective hemispheres, the first arrangement would have given Australia and New Guinea to Portugal; whereas the second arrangement would have limited her possessions at the longitude that separates Western Australia from her sister States to the east, which States would have fallen to the lot of Spain.  Strange to say, this line of demarcation still separates Western Australia from South Australia so that those two States derive their boundary demarcation from Pope Alexander’s line.

A few years after the discovery of the New World the Spanish Government found it necessary, in order to regulate her navigations, and ascertain what new discoveries were being made, to order the creation of an official map of the world, in the composition of which the skill and knowledge of all her pilots and captains were sought.

Curiously enough, as it may appear, there is an open sea where the Australian continent should be marked on this official map.

Are we to infer that no land had been sighted in that region?

Such a conclusion may be correct, but we must bear in mind that prior to the year 1529, when this map was made,* the Spaniards had sailed along 250 leagues of the northern shores of an island which they called the Island of Gold, afterwards named New Guinea, and yet there are no signs of that discovery to be found on the Spanish official map.  It is evident, therefore, that this part of the world could not have been charted up to date.  This is not extraordinary, for it was not uncommon in those days, nor was it deemed strange that many years should elapse before the results of an expedition could be known at head-quarters.  In order to realise the nature of the delays and difficulties to be encountered, nay, the disasters and sufferings to be endured and the determination required for the distant voyages of the period, we have but to recall the fate of Magellan’s and Loaysa’s expeditions.

[* See the Ribero Map.]

Those navigators were sent out in search of a western passage to the
Spice Islands, and with the object of determining their situation.

Of the five vessels which composed Magellan’s squadron, one alone, the Victoria, performed the voyage round the world.

The S.  Antonio deserted in the Straits which received Magellan’s name, seventy odd of the crew returning to Spain with her.

The Santiago was lost on the coast of Patagonia.

The Concepcion, becoming unfit for navigation, was abandoned and burnt off the island of Bohol, in the St. Lazarus Group, afterwards called the Philippines.

The Trinidad was lost in a heavy squall in Ternate Roads, and all hands made prisoners by the Portuguese.  Many of them died, and, years after, only four of the survivors reached their native shores.

The Victoria, after an absence of three years all but twelve days, returned to Spain with thirty-one survivors out of a total crew of two hundred and eighty.  The remaining one hundred and sixty or seventy had perished.  It is true that some of those shared the fate of Magellan, and were killed in the war undertaken in the Philippines to help their allies.