Was it the Portuguese?

A 16th century maritime map proves Portuguese adventurers, not British or Dutch, were the first Europeans to discover Australia, according to a new book.

The book, Beyond Capricorn, says the map, which accurately marks geographical sites along Australia's east coast in Portuguese, proves Portuguese seafarer Christopher de Mendonca led a fleet of four ships into Botany Bay in 1522 - almost 250 years before Britain's Captain James Cook.

The map is in a Los Angeles library vault.

Australian author Peter Trickett said that when he enlarged the small map he could recognise all the headlands and bays in Botany Bay in Sydney - the site where Cook claimed Australia for Britain in 1770.

"It was even so accurate that I found I could draw in the modern airport runways, to scale in the right place, without any problem at all," Trickett told Reuters.

This theory presumes, of course, that the theory put forth by David Menzies in 1421 that the Chinese Admiral Zheng He's great fleet explored the East coast of Australia (as well as the coasts of Africa and the Americas) is not correct -- and that the chart in question is based upon a copy of a copy of the charts from that expedition.

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