Читать книгу The Voyage of the Endeavour - G Arnold Wood - Страница 10

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What was down South? Was it an empty ocean? Or was it an ocean crowded with islands? Or was it, in the main, a continent? Various guesses were made. But the more geographers thought about the matter, the more they came to the opinion that the last of these guesses was the right one. The Unknown South must in the main be a continent. There were continents in the North; why not in the South? Nay, as there were continents in the North, there must be continents in the South. The world, argued the geographers, is a rolling ball, and a ball can only roll as a ball should roll if it is round, and its sides are of the same weight. Now in the known world there is far too much weight in the North; all Europe, nearly all Asia, and the most solid parts of Africa and America. To balance this weight in the North, there must be weight in the South. For if there were nothing in the South to balance the weight in the North, the world would not roll about in the orderly way in which she does roll about. If her shape had been more like that of a pear than that of an apple, with more weight at one end than at the other, she would not roll, but would wobble or bounce, and we should have a pretty world-sick sort of time.

Men of science to-day do not think that this was a good argument. The South, they say, could be heavy enough even if it had no continent; for continents are not so heavy as the masses of metal which press down the ocean beds. But 16th Century geographers were quite sure that their argument was good, and indeed unanswerable. And they were all the more sure of this because they thought that an early traveller named Marco Polo had said that he had actually got news of a rich continent South of Java, where there was "gold in incredible quantity." (This was a mistake, for Marco had really been talking about Siam, and the gentleman to whom he was talking had misunderstood him.) So geographers drew on their maps a Southern Continent which pretty well filled up the Unknown South, and they said that this was the land of which Marco Polo had heard.

But, as no one had ever seen this continent, each map-maker could draw it in the shape he liked best. A Portuguese map-maker asked you to believe that one of the islands to the East of Java—remember that the Portuguese knew only the North coasts of these islands—was the tip of a huge continent which stretched far South below Java, and he called it "Java the Great." He drew the continent in a way that made it cover the ground that is covered by Australia, and a great deal more ground too. Some writers think that this map-maker knew a good deal about Australia. But I do not think so. It seems to me that the map-maker, feeling pretty sure that there must be a huge continent in the South, thought it was just as likely to be to the South of Java as anywhere else. So he put a continent in the map just below Java, and called it "Java the Great," in order to warn people that if a continent ever was found there, it would, of course, like Java, belong to Portugal.

This Portuguese map has been lost. But French geographers had somehow got hold of it, and they used it in making their own maps. These maps, however, seem to have been little known, and no one seems to have had much belief in them. Seamen never sailed to look for "Java the Great." But other geographers drew a quite different map of the Southern Continent, which was generally accepted as true, and which led to voyages of discovery of great interest to us.

These geographers were much excited by the story of Magellan's famous voyage through the Straits. As he sailed through them, he had seen to the South a land with many fires burning, and had called it "Tierra del Fuego," Land of Fires. Well then, what is Tierra del Fuego? Clearly, said these geographers, it must be a promontory of the unknown Southern Continent! Magellan, it is true, had seen only a few hundred miles of coast; but no doubt that coast went stretching across the ocean, slightly to the West of the course of Magellan's ships. And where did it appear next? In New Guinea, of course, or thereabouts; for one cannot be sure whether New Guinea is an island, or is, like Tierra del Fuego, a part of the continent. So these geographers drew a coastline all the way from Tierra del Fuego to New Guinea, and wrote behind it—"This is the Southern Continent, called by some the Magellanican region from its discoverer"—though, in truth, all that Magellan had discovered of it was the northern coast of Tierra del Fuego! Then they drew the coastline of the unknown continent Westward from New Guinea, making a big bay in it, because they had to find room for an island which they thought—quite wrongly—had been visited in that part of the world by the early traveller, Marco Polo. Then they made a great promontory grow up that nearly reached Java, and wrote on it that these were the regions of which Marco Polo had told. Then the coastline of their continent fell steeply to the South-West—slightly Eastward of the homeward course of the Victoria—and, after rounding the Cape of Good Hope, ran across the South Atlantic, and joined the Eastern coast or Tierra del Fuego!

The people most interested in maps of this shape were the Spaniards, and especially the Spaniards of Peru. Why, you have only to sail Westward from Peru for a few days, and you are bound to run into a continent bigger than either Asia or America! And what a continent it will be! Straight opposite Peru, is it not certain to be as rich as Peru, and richer! Is it not indeed likely that the Incas came from it to Peru, and left behind them even greater riches than they brought with them? Will it not prove a land full of gold and silver and jewels and spices—of everything that the heart of man can desire and that the stomach of man can enjoy? Will you not find in it millions and millions of natives whom you can—if you like—make Christians, and whom you can—if you like—make slaves? Here is your chance to do what Columbus did, nay to do something far more splendid!

In 1567 two Spanish ships sailed from Peru, under a Spanish nobleman named Mendaña, to look for the golden continent. They sailed West, on a course which would have taken them—had they gone far enough—to Cooktown, two hundred years before Cook! But, as they saw no land, they changed their course to North-West, and discovered, not Australia, but the Solomon Islands. They thought at first that they had discovered a continent "an extent of land that seemed to have no limit"; and, at all events, a continent must be very near. They looked hard for gold; and, though they found no gold to put in pocket, they felt quite sure that soil and stones were full of it. They sailed home with gold, not in pocket, but in brain. And, over their wine in taverns, they talked gold so loudly and so everlastingly that people came to think they must have discovered "those isles whence Solomon fetched gold to adorn the Temple at Jerusalem"; and the islands became known as the "Solomon Islands."

Mendaña was eager to sail again, to take possession and to found a colony. But there were long delays. And when at last in 1595 he sailed in search of the golden islands he had discovered twenty-eight years before, he failed to find them; and two hundred years passed before they were found again. They were lost; and map-makers began to wonder whether they had ever been found. Now this losing of the Solomons was a strange chance. For had the Spaniards settled in them after Mendaña's discovery, it is likely that, sailing thence, they would have discovered Australia two hundred years before the Endeavour sailed.

But there was still a chance that Spaniards would discover Australia. The man who sailed as Chief Pilot with Mendaña in the voyage of 1595, was a Portuguese seaman, named Pedro Fernandez de Quiros. Portugal at that time was ruled by the King of Spain, and Portuguese seamen sailed in Spanish ships, though Spanish seamen were very much inclined to dislike them. The business of a Pilot on a Spanish ship was to know all that was known about navigation; and there were few Pilots who knew so much as Quiros. And there was no one who felt such hot desire to find the Continent of the South. For he was a missionary in spirit. His wish was, not to get gold, but to get souls; to wrest millions of souls from the Devil, and to lead them to Christ.

He persuaded the King of Spain to help this noble plan; and in 1605 he sailed from Peru, in command of three ships, on a course that would, had he sailed far enough, have brought him to New Zealand or Australia. He had hoped to sail in the summer, and to have had good weather for a voyage in the South. But there had been delays; and the seamen, feeling little interest in the venture, refused to sail South in the winter. So Quiros, like Mendaña in 1567, unwillingly changed his course to North-West; and he sailed on till he came, not to Australia, but to the islands which Cook explored 170 years later, and called the "New Hebrides."

But Quiros was sure that he had found the Continent, and that it stretched as far as the South Pole. He called it "Austrialia of the Holy Spirit." I think he would have called it "Australia," had it not seemed a good plan to put an i into the middle of the word in order to please the King of Spain, whose ancestors ruled Austria. Then he sailed Southward "to make out for certain whether it was mainland." But the ships were driven back by a hurricane. It was mid-winter now. The seamen were weary of the voyage, and were thankful to a hurricane that blew them North, and gave them a chance to force the captain to sail for home. Quiros was very ill—he had indeed been very ill all through the voyage. The seamen disliked him as a Portuguese, and a man of dreams. He was forced once more to let them have their way, and sorrowfully he sailed for Peru, dreaming—always dreaming—of the foundation in time to come of a Christian colony—a "New Jerusalem"—in the Southern Land of the Holy Spirit.

Quiros never had a chance to make his dreams come true. But news came that the commander of one of his ships, Louis Vaez de Torres, had made a wonderfully interesting voyage. Torres was a matter-of-fact man of strong character, determined to stick to plans, and to have his own way. "My temper," he wrote, "was different from that of Captain Pedro Fernandez de Quiros!" Neither hurricanes nor seamen should stop him! He sheltered in a harbour from the hurricane which blew Quiros Northward and then, with the other two ships, sailed South-West on a course which, had he sailed far enough, would have taken him to Brisbane 218 years before Brisbane was founded. It was a brave deed. "We had at this time nothing but bread and water; it was the height of winter, with sea, wind, and ill-will against us. All this did not prevent me from sailing South to 21°, for the ship was good. It was proper to act in this way, for these are not voyages performed every day, nor could Your Majesty otherwise be properly informed."

But, seeing "no sign of land," even Torres had to give up the search for the continent, and go on the course which Quiros had planned—which was now to make for the East end of New Guinea, and to sail along its fairly well-known Northern coast to the Philippine Islands. He came to the East end of New Guinea—and met winds that made it impossible to get round! What was he to do? The only plan seemed to be to sail West along the South coast of New Guinea—to sail, that is, through the most dangerous sea in the world, bristling with islands, sandbanks, coral reefs, both above water and below water, and with no certainty that there was any way out of it at all—for the map-makers could not agree whether New Guinea was an island or part of an unknown continent!

Yet Torres, the hero, sailed West, and he got through! Between the 10th of August, and the 18th of October, 1606, probably between the 12th and the 15th September, he—first of Europeans—sailed through the strait that is now called by his name. On his North was New Guinea. On his South was Australia:—but how was Torres to know that? All he saw was "some very large islands." One of them, perhaps, was Cape York. But Torres had never heard of Cape York, and little dreamed that the "island" was the tip of a great continent. Away sailed the matter-of-fact man, glad, and with good reason, to have escaped alive from the lurking dangers of the worst of all possible seas.

He came to the Philippine Islands, and wrote a very short letter to the King of Spain, which tells all that we shall ever know of this wonderful voyage. The King read the letter, and put it away in a pigeon-hole; and it was not printed till 200 years later! A Spanish writer, named Arias, got the news, and wrote a little book—it was printed in 1640—in which he said that Torres had sailed South of New Guinea. But the little book was forgotten; and it was not till a few years before the sailing of the Endeavour, that it was read again—by an Englishman, Alexander Dalrymple. He told what he had read to Mr. Joseph Banks, who sailed on the Endeavour; and it was, perhaps, partly on this account that the captain who sailed through Torres Strait the second time, was Captain James Cook.