Editing Terra Australis (section)

==The Province of Beach==
A land feature known as the "Province of Beach" or "Boeach" – from the Latin ''Provincia boëach'' – appears to have resulted from mistranscriptions of a name in Marco Polo's ''[[Il Milione]]'' (Book III). Polo described his journey by sea from China to India by way of [[Champa]] (''provincia ciamba''; modern southern Vietnam),  ''[[Jave la Grande|Java Major]]'', ''Locach'' (modern [[Lop Buri]]),<ref>Lavo (Thai ลพบร) was named after Lavo, the son of [[Rama]] in [[Hindu mythology]]). (G. E. Gerini, ''Researches on Ptolemy's geography of Eastern Asia (further India and Indo-Malay archipelago),'' London, Royal Asiatic Society, Asiatic Society Monographs vol.1, 1909, p.&nbsp;180.</ref>   and [[Sumatra]] (''Java Minor''). In [[Cantonese]], Lavo (an early name of Lop Buri) was pronounced "Lo-huk" 羅斛  and ''Locach'' was Marco Polo's transcription of this name.<ref>Paul Pelliot, ''Notes on [[Marco Polo]],'' Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1963, Vol.II, pp.&nbsp;768–9, note 2.</ref> According to Polo, Locach was a kingdom where gold was "so plentiful that no one who did not see it could believe it". Polo's narrative describes the route southward from Champa toward [[Sumatra]], but by a slip of the pen the name "Java" (which Polo did not himself visit) was substituted for "Champa" as the point of departure,<ref>''Milione: il Milione nelle redazioni toscana e franco–italiana, Le Divisament dou Monde,'' Gabriella Ponchi (ed.), Milano, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, 1982, p.&nbsp;540: cap. clxiii, "La grant isle de Java".</ref> thereby mis-locating Sumatra  and Locach south of Java (rather than Champa). Consequently, some geographers believed that Sumatra and Locach were near, or extensions of, ''Terra Australis''.<ref>James R. McClymont, "The Theory of an Antipodal Southern Continent during the Sixteenth Century", ''Report of the Fourth Meeting of the Australasian Association for the Advancement of Science,'' Hobart, January 1892, Hobart, the Association, 1893, pp.&nbsp;442–462; Paul Pelliot, ''Notes on Marco Polo,'' Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1963, Vol.II, p.&nbsp;769.</ref>
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In the [[Kurrent|German cursive script]], ''Locach'' and ''Boeach'' look similar. A feature known as the "Province of Beach" or "Boeach" – from the Latin ''Provincia boëach'' – appears on European maps as early as the 15th century. On a map of the world published in Florence in 1489 by [[Henricus Martellus]], the Latin name ''provincia boëach'' is given to a southern neighbour of Champa. In a 1532 edition of [[The Travels of Marco Polo|Marco Polo's ''Travels'']], Locach was changed to ''Boëach'', later shortened to ''Beach''.<ref>Simon Grynaeus and Johann Huttich, ''Novus Orbis Regionum ac Insularum,'' Basel and Paris, 1532, Marco Polo cap.xi, "De provincia Boëach"; cited in Thomas Suarez, ''Early Mapping of Southeast Asia,'' Hong Kong, Periplus, 1999, p.&nbsp;160.</ref>

By the mid-16th century, according to [[Henry Yule]], the editor of a modern (1921) edition of Polo's ''Travels'', some geographers and cartographers followed the error in older editions of Polo that "placed ... the land of "Boeach" (or Locac)" south-east of Java and "introduced in their maps a continent in that situation".<ref>Sir Henry Yule (ed.), ''The Book of Ser Marco Polo,'' London, Murray, 1921, Volume 2, pp.&nbsp;276–280.</ref> [[Gerard Mercator]] did just that on his 1541 globe,  placing ''Beach provincia aurifera'' ("Beach the gold-bearing province") in the northernmost part of the ''Terra Australis'' in accordance with the faulty text of Marco Polo's ''Travels''. The landmass of Beach remained in this location on Mercator's world map of 1569, with the amplified description, quoting Marco Polo, ''Beach provincia aurifera quam pauci ex alienis regionibus adeunt propter gentis inhumanitatem'' ("Beach the gold-bearing province, whither go few from other countries because of the inhumanity of its people") with ''Lucach regnum'' shown somewhat to its south west.<ref>Peter van der Krogt, ''Globi Neerlandici: The Production of Globes in the Low Countries,'' Utrecht, HES Publishers, 1993, p.&nbsp;64, plate 2.14.</ref> Following Mercator, [[Abraham Ortelius]] also showed <small>''BEACH''</small> and <small>''LVCACH''</small> in these locations on his world map of 1571.

The 1596 map by [[Jan Huygen van Linschoten]] showed <small>''BEACH''</small> and <small>''LOCACH''</small>, projecting from the map's southern edge as the northernmost parts of the ''Terra Australis'' long hypothesized by Europeans. An encounter by the Dutch vessel ''Eendracht'', commanded by [[Dirk Hartog]], with [[Shark Bay, Western Australia]] in 1616, appeared to confirm that land existed where the maps showed ''Beach''; Hartog named the wider  landmass ''[[Eendrachtsland]]'', after his ship. In August 1642, the Council of the [[Dutch East India Company]] – evidently still relying on Linschoten's map – despatched [[Abel Tasman]] and [[Frans Jacobszoon Visscher]] on a voyage of exploration, of which one of the objects was to obtain knowledge of "all the totally unknown provinces of Beach".<ref>J.E. Heeres, "Abel Janszoon Tasman, His Life and Labours", ''Abel Tasman's Journal,'' Los Angeles, 1965, pp.&nbsp;137, 141–2; cited in Andrew Sharp, ''The Voyages of Abel Janszoon Tasman,'' Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1968, pp.24-25.</ref>