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SIXTEENTH- AND SEVENTEENTH-CENTURY IDEAS OF THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. WAS NEW GUINEA PART OF IT? SPANISH AND PORTUGUESE KNOWLEDGE. THE DAUPHIN CHART. DUTCH IDEAS. BULL OF POPE ALEXANDER VI. THE SPANISH MAIN. ENGLAND AND HOLLAND IN THE FIELD. MAGELHAEN'S VOYAGE TO THE PHILIPPINES. HIS DEATH. DID HIS OFFICERS TOUCH AUSTRALIA I QUIROS DISCOVERS SANTA CRUZ AND TRIES TO ESTABLISH A COLONY. WYTFLIET'S BELIEF THAT NEW GUINEA WAS DISTINCT FROM THE GREAT SOUTH LAND. SPANISH KNOWLEDGE OF THE STRAIT. QUIROS' NEW EXPEDITION. FLAGSHIP AND CONSORTS SEPARATE AT ESPIRITU SANTO (NEW HEBRIDES). QUIROS TAKES THAT ISLAND TO BE PART OF THE SOUTH LAND. TORRES DISPROVES THIS. LAYING-OUT THE NEW JERUSALEM. TORRES' REPORT DISCOVERED IN 1762. QUIROS' REPORT DISCOVERED IN 1876. TORRES' VOYAGE. STRIKES THE SOUTH SIDE OF NEW GUINEA. CLEARS TORRES STRAIT, PROBABLY BY THE BLIGH CHANNEL, ABOUT 24TH SEPTEMBER, 1606. DOES NOT CLAIM THE STRAIT AS HIS OWN DISCOVERY AND PROBABLY MADE FOR IT ON INFORMATION ALREADY IN HIS POSSESSION. REACHES THE MOLUCCAS ABOUT 28TH NOVEMBER, 1606. SUCCESSFULLY CONDUCTS LITTLE WAR AT TERNATE. REACHES THE PHILIPPINES ABOUT 12TH MAY, 1607.

A mass of vague and fragmentary evidence points to the conclusion that by the middle of the sixteenth century Spanish and Portuguese navigators had become aware that New Guinea was separated by a strait from a continent lying to the south. The knowledge was, however, jealously guarded. A significant passage occurs in an English edition, published in Louvain in 1597, of CORNELIS WYTFLIET'S Descriptionis Ptolemicae Augmentum (1597):

"The Australis Terra is the most southern of all lands. It is separated from New Guinea by a narrow strait. Its shores are hitherto but little known, since, after one voyage and another, that route has been deserted, and seldom is the country visited, unless when sailors are driven there by storms. The Australis Terra begins at two or three degrees from the equator, and is maintained by some to be of so great an extent that, if it were thoroughly explored, it would be regarded as a fifth part of the world." [1]

The inference, as pointed out by Collingridge, is inevitable that Wytfliet referred to sources of information other than Dutch.

Collingridge adduces [2] reasonable support for his contention that the western coast of Australia had been "charted". (although the word "sketched" might be more appropriate) by the Portuguese

[1) Collingridge, Discovery of Australia, p. 219.]

[2) British Association for the Advancement of Science: Sydney meeting, 1914. See also his work, The Discovery of Australia, Sydney, 1895, p. 172, where the "Dauphin Chart," dated 1530-1536, is reproduced.]

and the eastern coast by the Spanish prior to the year 1530. In the DAUPHIN CHART, on which this conjecture is founded, the point identified as Cape York is, however, not depicted, as it really is, south of New Guinea, but as lying west of Timor and in the latitude of the north coast of Java. The supposed Gulf of Carpentaria has for its western limit the eastern end of Java, and from its south-western corner what may be called a strait or channel, or still more correctly a canal, runs westward between "Jave" on the north and "Jave la Grande," or Australia, on the south. The supposed Gulf of Carpentaria is, according to the map, interrupted by a few islands, and on it is written, in the Portuguese language, the legend "Anda ne Barcha" (no ships come here).[1] Collingridge conjectures that the French compiler of the map, ignorant of Portuguese, copied this legend from an older Portuguese map, under the impression that it was the name of the Gulf or of the group of islands.

In the sixteenth century, the islands between Asia and Australia came to be well known to European adventurers. In 1512, Portugal took possession of the Molucca group, the centre of the "Spice Islands," and this possession speedily grew to great commercial importance and passed into the hands of Spain. Magelhaen "discovered" the Philippines in 1520 and Spain annexed them fifty years later. Meantime the Dutch and the English were on the alert and looking for a foothold.

As far back as July, 1493, a BULL OF POPE ALEXANDER VI had fixed a north and south line of demarcation between the claims of Portugal and Spain to future discoveries. Portugal was to occupy the hemisphere to the east and Spain the hemisphere to the west of that line, which was placed 100 leagues (5° 43')[2] west of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands. The generosity of the Pope was no doubt fully appreciated by the two beneficiaries, but the line was not quite satisfactory to either of them; besides, it was ill-defined, because some six degrees of longitude extend between the westmost Azores and the eastmost Cape Verdes. A private arrangement or treaty was therefore made on 4th June, 1494, by Don Juan II of Portugal on the one hand and Isabella and Ferdinand of Spain on the other, whereby it was agreed that the line should run 370 leagues (21° 9') west of the Cape Verde Islands.

Assuming 25° W. to be the mean longitude of the Azores and Cape Verde Islands, the bull of 1493 bisected the globe by the meridians of 40° 43' W. and 149° 17' E., the latter meridian giving to Portugal the islands of the Pacific west of the eastmost cape of New Guinea and to Spain all those east of that cape. The treaty

[1) The equivalent of the phrase in modern Spanish, viz. "Barcas no andan," differs so little from the Portuguese that some hesitation may be felt in settling the question on the sole evidence of language. Blank ignorance of Portuguese on the part of a French cartographer is rather a bold assumption. The most genuinely learned men of these days were to be found among the compilers of maps.]

[2) 17½ Spanish leagues= 1 geographical degree.]

of 1494 cut through the globe by the meridians of 46° 9' W. and 133° 51' E.

It must be remembered that COLUMBUS had just discovered the West Indian Islands a year before the issue of the papal bull. The mainland of America was discovered in 1497 by SEBASTIAN CABOT, a Venetian in the service of Henry VII of England. Then the passage of the SPANISH MAIN, the sphere of influence granted to Spain, became, for Europe, a question of very practical politics, over which much blood was to be shed, as other nations claimed the freedom of the sea. It was not till 1588 that the question was settled by the decisive defeat of the Spanish armada by the English fleet.

Had the nations outside of Spain and Portugal admitted the validity of the bull, the greater part of Australia would have belonged to Portugal, and a slice of the eastern coast, covering Sydney, Brisbane and Rockhampton, would have been Spanish. By the treaty (which was a sort of reciprocal Monroe doctrine), the western half of Australia would have been Portuguese and the eastern half Spanish.

It is needless to say that no other maritime powers ever assented to the partition between Spain and Portugal of all lands to be discovered in the future. The title of the two Powers was soon to be disputed by the rising maritime nations England and Holland. Moreover, the definition of the treaty line in the Pacific raised, between Spain and Portugal themselves, questions which brought them to the verge of war.

Here,then,was an excellent reason why Spaniards and Portuguese should preserve secrecy or practise deceit regarding the location of discoveries in the vicinity of the boundary line, whether by bull or treaty. The interest of a Portuguese tempted him, sometimes beyond his strength, to place his discovery west, while a Spaniard was tempted to place his discovery east of the boundary line in the Pacific. Secret instructions must have been issued to navigators by the authorities of both countries, in consequence of which they would systematically misrepresent their longitudes, and the truth would be arrived at by the authorities on reading the reports and charts with the aid of a "key."

Granting that the "Dauphin Chart" was compiled in parts from Spanish or Portuguese originals and that the land shown to the south of Java really represents the northern portion of Australia, which was already, early in the sixteenth century, vaguely known to both Spanish and Portuguese, the westward-moving of the new continent was clearly in the interest of Portugal, and the warning or danger signal "ships do not (or cannot or must not) come here"—in other words, "not navigable"—was clearly a "bluff." It was, therefore, probably a Portuguese map which was drawn upon for the information given in the Dauphin chart.

MAGELHAEN AND CANO

MAGELHAEN, a Portuguese who had taken service with Spain, set out with five vessels from Luzar on 10th September, 1519. After passing through the strait which now bears his name, he reached the Philippine Islands, where he was killed by the natives. Only one ship of his squadron returned to Europe, via the Cape of Good Hope, carrying eighteen persons, all very sick. This ship was the "Victoria," Captain Juan Sebastian del CANO. The "Victoria" sailed via the Moluccas to Timor. Thence she must have gone south-westward till "certain islands" were discovered under the tropic of Capricorn. As this land, according to Cano, was only 100 leagues (5° 43') from Timor, it is more likely to have been the continent of Australia (somewhere between Onslow and Carnarvon, Western Australia) than Madagascar, as has been assumed by some writers. Whether Cano actually landed here is uncertain, but it may be taken for granted that in these days no ship could afford to neglect an opportunity of landing for the purpose of taking in water.

TORRES

A Spanish expedition under ALVARO MENDANA DE MEYRA, with PEDRO FERNANDEZ DE QUIROS as second in command, sailed from Callao on 9th April, 1595, and discovered the island of SANTA CRUZ (lat. 11° S., long. 166° E.), where an attempt was made to establish a colony. The result was a disastrous failure, and Mendana's death took place soon after. WYTFLIET'S MAP (1597[1]) shows, in the same latitude as the southmost Solomon Islands (10° S.), a strait dividing Nova Guinea and Terra Australis, and this is actually the latitude of Torres Strait. The map has a note stating that TERRA AUSTRALIS is "SEPARATED FROM NEW GUINEA by a narrow strait. Its shores are hitherto but little known, since, after one voyage and another, that route has been deserted, and seldom is the country visited unless when sailors are driven there by storms." In this harmless statement, there is surely no ground for Collingridge's accusation of fraud on the part of the Dutch, or of a desire to filch the credit of the discovery of the strait. Collingridge adduces a good many fragments of evidence that both the Spanish and the Dutch were well aware of the existence of the strait before the end of the sixteenth century, but after Wytfliet's admission there was a growing tendency on the part of the Dutch to deny the existence of such a strait, and several failures on their part to verify it only strengthened this doubt. They doubted more and more until the question was finally settled by Cook in 1770.

[1) The Discovery of Australia, by George Collingridge, 4to, Sydney, 1895, p. 218.]

That the strait was known to Spaniards early in the seventeenth century is proved by a remarkable document, dating from somewhere between 1614 and 1621. This is a MEMORIAL which DR. JEAN LUIS ARIAS, a lawyer in Chili, writing on behalf of a number of priests, addressed to King Philip III, urging more vigorous exploration, on humanitarian and religious grounds. NEW GUINEA is referred to in it as "a Country ENCOMPASSED WITH WATER."

QUIROS, who persisted for years in urging the colonisation of Santa Cruz and the further exploration of the South Land, was at last given the command of an expedition, which left CALLAO, Peru, on 21st December, 1605. He hoisted his flag on the "San Pedro y San Pablo" (usually referred to in narratives as "El Capitano," or the Flagship), with, as his Captain or Chief Pilot, JUAN OCHAO DE BILBAHO. This officer was not a man of his own choice, but was forced upon him by the Viceroy at Lima, whose relative and protegé he was. In the course of the voyage he was disrated and replaced by the Junior Pilot GASPAR GONZALEZ DE LEZA. TORRES commanded the "San Pedro" (usually called, "for short," the "Almirante," or Lieutenant's ship). A zabra, or tender, named the "Tres Reyes," was in charge of PEDRO BERNAL CERMEÑO.

The flagship parted company with her consorts at the island of Espiritu Santo, and thereafter the two fragments of the expedition pursued separate courses. It is only with the section commanded by TORRES that the historian of the Cape York Peninsula is directly concerned, but the full significance of Torres' voyage cannot be correctly estimated without some consideration of the events which preceded the separation.

Quiros and Torres were among the last of Spain's navigators of the first order: by the time their expedition set out, Spain's influence in the Pacific was on the wane. The records of their experiences met with the usual fate of such documents. In accordance with what had become almost a matter of routine, they were at first jealously kept secret. Pigeon-holed, they were in due time forgotten, only to be unearthed, piece by piece, through the diligence of patriots, politicians and historians. In reviewing the progress of discovery subsequent to Quiros and Torres, it is necessary to remind ourselves that at any given date the information available was limited to such documents as had come to light, and the problems confronting new explorers were not at all those which would have been before them had they been fully aware of what had already been done. It may be confidently asserted that had the various reports of Quiros and Torres been given to the world in their true chronological order, the course of history would have differed widely from what it has been. Up to comparatively recent times the achievements of Quiros were only known at second hand, and chiefly through the meagre references by Torres, Arias and

Torquemada. It was only in 1876 that the text of QUIROS' VOYAGE was given to the world by JUSTO ZARAGOZA, whereupon clouds of tradition and misconception were dispelled. Practically the whole of the Quiros documents have been skilfully marshalled by the late SIR CLEMENTS MARKHAM for the Hakluyt Society in the two volumes published in 1904. The chief items in the QuirosTorres bibliography are enumerated in the footnote.[1]

On leaving Callao, the expedition steered WSW. into 26° south latitude, somewhere in the vicinity of Easter Island, when, from considerations of the lateness of the season and other reasons, Quiros turned his ships towards WNW. His original intention had clearly been to go much further south, as may be seen from the text of his directions to Torres:—

"You are to be very diligent, both by day and night, in following the 'Capitano' ship, which will shape a WSW. course until the latitude of 30° is reached, and when that is reached, and no land has been seen, the course will be altered to NW. until the latitude of 10° 15'; and if no land has yet been found, a course will be followed on that parallel to the west in search of the Island of Santa Cruz. There a port will be sought in the bay of Graciosa, in 10° of latitude and 1,850 leagues from the city of The Kings [Lima] to the South of a great and lofty volcano standing alone in the sea, about 8 leagues from the said bay. The Captain who arrives first in this Port, which is at the head of the Bay, between a spring of water and a moderate-sized river,

[1) Historia del Descubrimiento de las Regiones Austriales hecho por el General Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, publicado per Don Justo Zaragoza, 3 vols. Madrid, 1876. This document was written by Quiros' Secretary Luis de Belmonte Bermudez, and signed by Quiros for authentication. (English translation by Markham, 1904.) The Voyages of Fernandez de Quiros, 1595-1606, translated and edited by Sir Clements Markham, 2 vols., 1904. Hakluyt Society. True Account of the Voyage that the Captain Pedro Fernandez de Quiros made by order of His Majesty to the Southern Unknown Land, by Gaspar Gonzalez de Leza, Chief Pilot of the said Fleet (translated by Markham, 1904). Corroborates Bermudez. The author confines himself to facts, courses and latitudes, and ignores the insubordination or mutiny. Torquemada's Voyage of Quiros, Seville, 1615 (translated by Markham, 1904). A sketchy account compiled from the documents available in 1615. Torquemada is to Quiros as Hawkesworth to Cook. Relation of Luis Vass de Torres, concerning the Discoveries of Quiros, as his Almirante [Lieutenant]. Manila, July 12th, 1607. A copy fell into the hands of Alexander Dalrymple, 1762, and he published the Spanish text in Edinburgh in 1772. Dalrymple afterwards translated the Relation into English, and it was first printed in Burney's Discoveries in the South Seas, 1806. Reproduced by Collingridge and also by Markham. Charts of Diego de Prado y Tobar. Sent from Goa in 1613. They are four in number and represent (1) Espiritu Santo, and (2, 3, and 4) Localities in Southern New Guinea, and give the dates of the discoveries. Markham observes:—"All the maps are signed by Diego de Prado y Tobar, who thus claims to be their author. The Surveys were no doubt made by Torres himself or by his Chief Pilot Fuentiduefias. Prado y Tobar may have been the draughtsman." The charts were discovered about 1878, and were reproduced by Collingridge and Markham. Two letters to the King sent by de Prado 24th and 25th December, 1613, enclosing the above charts, and also a general chart of Torres' Discoveries (which has not been found). Printed by Collingridge and Markham. The Arias Memorial (1614-1621). A Voyage to Terra Australis in the Years 1801, 1802 and 1803 in His Majesty's Ship the "Investigator," by Matthew Flinders, R.N., 2 vols, fcp. London, 1914, vol. i., pp.vii, x, xi. See also, The Discovery of Australia before 1770, by George Collingridge, 4to. Sydney, 1895. The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea, by George Collingridge. Sydney, 1906. The Part borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia, by J. E. Heeres, LL.D. Leiden and London, 1899. Life of Tasman, by J. E. Heeres, fol. London, 1898.]

with bottom from 40 to 35 fathoms, is to anchor there and wait there three months for the other two ships. When together, a resolution will be taken as to what further shall be done, in compliance with His Majesty's orders. If by chance the other ships do not arrive, the Captain before he departs, is to raise a Cross, and at the foot of it, or of the nearest tree, he is to make a sign on the trunk to be understood by him who next arrives, and to bury a jar with the mouth closed with tar, and containing a narrative of all that has happened and of his intentions. Then he will steer SW. as far as 20°, thence NW. to 4°, and on that parallel he is to steer West in search of New Guinea. After coasting all along that land, he is to proceed to the Country of Manila, by the Island of Luzon of the Philippines, in 14° North, thence by the Eastern Indies to Spain."

Much confusion has arisen, and much speculation has been indulged in, owing to a doubt as to the correct interpretation of references by Torres to the "prescribed latitude." The general and very natural impression has hitherto been that Quiros was under orders not to turn north until he had reached a certain southern latitude, the precise situation of which he and Torres were ordered to keep secret.

The narrative of Bermudez (as the mouthpiece of Quiros), only recently given to the world, proves conclusively that there was no mystery and no intentional concealment. Quiros, as a matter of fact, received no orders from Spain, and the valedictory epistle of the Governor of Peru did not restrict his discretionary powers.

The expedition was manned by 130 seafarers and six priests. The flagship and the "Almirante" were vessels of 150 and 120 tons respectively.

QUIROS had barely gone to sea when he began to be ill, and he was more or less of an invalid during the whole of the voyage. From the occasional references to headaches and other symptoms, a layman would conjecture that he had got a "touch of the sun" at Lima. At all events, he was frequently too ill to take his proper place of command and was under the necessity of leaving to subordinates many decisions which were among his own obvious duties. The narrative (written, it must be remembered, by a faithful admirer) naïvely shows him to have been by turn querulous, weak, timid and vacillating, although ever honestly and even zealously solicitous for the glory of his God and the advantage of his King. His sentiments, as reported by Bermudez, were humane, honourable and far ahead of his time, and I do not think they were cant, such as flowed readily enough from the pens of some previous and contemporary navigators. His shortcomings may charitably, and I think justly, be set down as symptoms of his malady.

The too early abandonment of the initial WSW. course was unfortunate for Quiros, who, had he persevered, would probably have anticipated Tasman's discovery of New Zealand. Torres protested against it and endeavoured to induce Quiros to carry out his original intention of touching 30° S. before "diminishing his latitude," but to no purpose.

There is reason to believe that Quiros was influenced in his decision to steer WNW. no less by the insubordinate, if not mutinous, conduct of a section of his crew than by the lateness of the season. Probably enough, with a commander of greater firmness, the ugly word "mutiny" would never have been heard.

Having reached, approximately, the latitude of 10° S., the expedition steered west for VERA CRUZ, driven by the imperative need for fresh water and firewood. These requisites, however, were obtained at an island named TOUMACO, and the project of making for Vera Cruz was abandoned.

By this time, the INSUBORDINATION on the flagship had to be dealt with. The ringleader was the Chief Pilot, or Captain, JUAN OCHOA DE BILBAHO, for whom Quiros considered that a sufficient punishment was to be relieved of his office and sent on board the "Almirante"—a proceeding which was perhaps a little hard on Torres. Ochoa was replaced by GASPAR GONZALEZ DE LEZA, Junior Pilot.

A bitterly spiteful enemy of Quiros, and necessarily a supporter of the disrated Captain, was DIEGO DE PRADO Y TOBAR, who, according to his own account, voluntarily accompanied Ochoa and boarded the "Almirante" at Toumaco. In allowing an officer of the flagship t0 desert openly and to side with a degraded malcontent, it seems to me that Quiros displayed a weakness which was most reprehensible, unless it was to be pardoned as a "symptom" of his illness. Be this as it may, we owe to the desertion of Prado, as will afterwards appear, a much fuller knowledge of Torres' subsequent proceedings than we should have had if Prado had not accompanied Torres for the remainder of the expedition. In the letters already referred to, Prado states that: "I went as Captain of the ship Capitano,' knew what took place on board and took part in it, and as it was not in conformity with the good of Your Majesty's Service, I could not stay. So I disembarked at Toumaco and went to the Almirante,' where I was well received." The assertion that he was Captain is sheer impudence, as there can be no question that the Captain was Ochoa. Prado was perhaps a mate" of some sort, and the sailing of the ship may at some time have temporarily devolved upon him in the course of duty, but beyond this there was never any justification for his claim. His version of the story is that he gave Quiros timely warning of the mutinous disposition of the "Capitano's" officers and crew, and he insinuates that Quiros either did not believe him or stood so much in fear of the malcontents that he made things so unpleasant that he (Prado) was glad to exchange into the "Almirante."

At Toumaco, the natives were understood to say that large lands (which, of course, might prove to be the desired South Land) lay to the south, and the course was changed accordingly. In latitude 15° 40' S. and longitude 176° E., the promised land

seemed to have been reached at last, on 30th April, 1606. Good harbourage was afforded by the GRAN BAYA DE SAN FELIPE Y SANTIAGO (Saints Philip and James), otherwise the Port of VERA CRUZ (True Cross), thus going one better than Mendano with his Santa Cruz (Holy Cross). On the banks of the JORDAN RIVER, at the head of the bay, the site for the great colonial city, the NEW JERUSALEM was selected. The country was at first called the Land of ESPIRITU SANTO (Holy Ghost), but as Quiros became convinced that it was part of the great Southern Continent, he expanded the title to AUSTRALIA DEL ESPIRITU SANTO, [1] and took formal possession, in the name of his Sovereign, of "all lands then seen, and still to be seen, as far as the South Pole." The grandiose names bestowed illustrate not only the innate piety but also the weakness for superlatives which characterised the Spaniard of the seventeenth century.

It has been argued (e.g., by the late Cardinal Moran) that Quiros, with three ships under his command, could not have spent five weeks at the Island of Santo without discovering that it was no part of a continent. The fact remains that he did believe it to be continental, although from the first Torres did not agree with him. Quiros approached the island predisposed to believe as he did. The elaborate ceremony which marked his stay, including the nomination of municipal officers, the erection of a votive church and the inauguration of an order of Knighthood of the Holy Ghost, sufficiently attested the sincerity of his belief. The ceremonies and the hopes to which they testified were, indeed, as Sir Clements Markham observed, in the light of our present knowledge, not a little pathetic.

In after years the conviction obsessed him, till he besought his King and the world to believe that he had added to the Spanish Crown a territory of hardly less importance than that gained by the discoveries of Columbus. He died, broken-hearted, shouting this belief into deaf ears.

The argument that Quiros had time enough to ascertain that Santo was an island is sufficiently answered by the fact now clearly discernible from the narrative of Bermudez, that the exploration which took place during the five weeks was confined to the "Gran Baya" and its environs, and that Quiros, in the flagship, was never outside of the bay until the day when he finally departed from it, to be driven out of sight of land and separated from his two consorts. Unexpected confirmation of this fact is supplied by the CHART OF THE GRAN BAYA (brought to light as recently as 1878) signed by PRADO, which shows so many anchorages inside the bay that it may easily be believed they account for as many of the

[1) Markham supports the view that the name should read—as it sometimes does, spelling in the seventeenth century being capricious—Austrialia, a claim to Austria being signified in one of the titles of the King of Spain.]

thirty-five days as were not spent ashore. The chart, whether the credit of the surveying or only of the draughtsmanship belongs to Prado, agrees so well with modern Admiralty Charts of that portion of the island, that there can be no question of the accuracy of Captain Cook's identification—made, of course, without the assistance of Prado's Chart, which, in 1770, lay unknown in the Spanish archives.

Sir Clements Markham, for many years President of the Royal Geographical Society, had no difficulty in admitting the honesty of Quiros' belief that he had discovered the southern land, and wrote of his approach to the Island of Espiritu Santo:—

"Island after island, all lofty and thickly inhabited, rose upon the horizon, and at last he sighted such extensive coast-lines that he believed the Southern Continent to be spread out before him. The islands of the New Hebrides Group, such as Aurora, Leper, and Pentecost, overlapping each other to the south-east, seemed to him to be continuous coast-lines, while to the south-west was the land which he named Austrialia del Espiritu Santo. All appeared to his vivid imagination to be one continuous continental land."

The expedition, as has been mentioned, remained in the Bay of Saints Philip and James for thirty-five days, viz., from 3rd May to 8th June, 1606, the numerous anchorages laid down on Prado's chart showing how thoroughly the shores must have been examined. The sailors made themselves very much at home and behaved with such arrogance, cruelty and rapacity that the natives treated them with well-merited hostility, and although Quiros "deplored" such excesses, he seems to have taken no suitable steps to stop them, beyond formally prohibiting profane swearing and other unseemly practices. It is noteworthy that the outrageous conduct of Prado was so far condoned that he figured in the list of officers of the municipality of the New Jerusalem as Depositario General. This term is translated by Markham as "General Storekeeper," but in my opinion, the fact that Prado carried off with him, among other things, the manuscript, or at least a copy, of the new chart of the bay and its environs, favours the view that the office held by him was the more responsible one of receiver or recorder.

The three vessels left the bay on 8th June, presumably with the intention of coasting along the continent to the north-west, or, should Espiritu Santo prove to be a cape, of running south-west to 20° S. north-west to 4°, and west on that parallel to the coast of New Guinea, given an open sea, in accordance with the spirit of the instructions given to Torres for his guidance in the event of a separation. As soon, however, as they cleared the cape which formed the north-western horn of the bay, they met with a strong wind from the south-east and endeavoured to get back into the bay for shelter. In this attempt the "Almirante" and the tender succeeded, but the FLAGSHIP was blown further and further to

leeward and in the morning succeeding the first night was out of sight of land and hopelessly SEPARATED FROM HER CONSORTS. Quiros

himself was "below," too ill to direct the conduct of his vessel. Prado asserts, indeed, that Quiros was a prisoner in the hands of mutineers, but as he was not on board and could only have obtained his information at second hand, and, moreover, was prejudiced and malicious, the statement may be disregarded. Quiros himself, as he complained, had enemies on board, discontented and sulky, but there can be no doubt of the loyalty and devotion of his new Captain, de Leza, and his Secretary, Bermudez, who, perhaps jointly, conducted affairs during Quiros' incapacity.

The "Capitano," having reached 10° S., the latitude of Santa Cruz, without seeing the island, being probably between it and the Solomon Group, it was resolved on 18th June to make for Acapulca. unless some friendly port should first be discovered suitable for refitting and repairing the ship. On a NE. by N. course the line was crossed on 2nd July. The course was shortly altered to NE., and lay, in all probability, between the Marshall and Gilbert Islands. Having reached 38° N. latitude, the vessel steered ESE. until North American land was sighted in 34° on 23rd September. The Mexican coast was then followed to the SE. and Acapulca was reached on 23rd November, 1606. Only one death occurred during the voyage, that of an old priest. Quiros, who landed without resources, was coldly received. He, however, managed to reach Madrid on 9th October, 1607. The remainder of his life was spent in making passionate appeals to the King for the means to prosecute his discoveries and develop the imaginary continent in the interests of Spain. Wearied by his importunities, the Government got him out of the way by giving him an open letter to the Governor at Panama, who was instructed to assist him to his object, at the same time sending an0ther letter in which the Governor was secretly instructed to string him on and delay him ad infinitum. Fortunately for himself, he died on the voyage to Panama (1609-1610) unaware of the treachery of which he was to be the victim. He was only fifty years of age, but was, says Markham, "worn out and driven to his grave by Councils and Committees with their futile talk, needless delays and endless obstructions."

The flagship having disappeared, TORRES waited and searched for it for fifteen days, before feeling himself free to form his own plans for carrying out the instructions given him by Quiros. He weighed anchor on 26th June, and commenced the voyage which took him through the passage on which Dalrymple afterwards conferred the name Of TORRES STRAIT.

Torres' relation or report on this voyage occurs in the form of a letter from Manila, dated 12th July, 1607, addressed to the King of Spain, and is, so far as is known, the first recorded account of the passage of Torres Straits. Had this report been published

at once future explorers would have followed different lines from those now marked by history. We have already seen how this report disappeared. There are indications that Robert de Vaugondy had got some inkling of it, or of charts relating to it, between 1752, when his map of the region showed no strait, but only a "bight" on the western side (the Dutch idea), and 1756, when his map showed the strait. The report was, in fact, discovered at Manila[1] in 1762, when a copy fell into the hands of Alexander Dalrymple, who printed the Spanish text in Edinburgh in 1772, as an appendix to his Charts and Memoirs. He had not, apparently, mastered its contents, or grasped its significance, in 1770. Years later,. he translated it into English, and permitted Captain James Burney to print the translation in his Discoveries in the South Seas in 1806. Dalrymple, in fact, only knew of Torres' achievement at second hand, and chiefly through the references of Arias, when Cook sailed in the "Endeavour" in 1768.

Up to the last quarter of the eighteenth century, the references to the voyages of Torres, second hand and unauthenticated as they were, contained in Arias' Memorial (written between 1614 and 1641) were practically all that were known to the world of Torres and Torres Strait.

The last, and not the least important, of the sources of information regarding Torres have come to light as recently as 1878. These are CHARTS signed by PRADO, and purporting to have been drawn during his voyage with Torres. It appears that Napoleon I looted the treasures of the Spanish Archives in a wholesale fashion and sent them to Paris. "There," says Collingridge,[2] "they were found some years ago by a friend of mine, who caused them to be restored to their original owners, and acquainted me with their existence." They were reproduced in the Bol. de la Soc. Geografica de Madrid, tom. iv, January, 1878, and, with two letters of Prado, dated 24th and 25th December, 1613, again reproduced by Collingridge.[3] Possibly, as Markham suggests, the surveys were the work of Torres or his Sailing Master, Fuentidueñas, and only the draughtsmanship is to be credited to Prado; but in any case the charts are undoubtedly authentic and in accuracy of surveying bear comparison with modern Admiralty work. Fortunately, Torres followed the pious custom of his time in naming places discovered by him after the Saint or Saints whose festivities appeared in the Calendar of the day, and thus we get several important dates for which no other authority can be cited.

Our sources of information regarding Torres' important voyage are, therefore, practically limited to (1) Torres' Letter to

[1) Flinders' Voyage to Terra Australis in 1801, 1802 and 1803, London, 1814, vol. i, p. 10.]

[2) First Discovery of Australia, p. 122.]

[3) The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea, Sydney, 1906, pp. 246-256.]

the King of Spain, (2) Prado's Charts and Letters and (3) the Arias Memorial. In the order in which these became known to the world they should read (1) Arias, (2) Torres and (3) Prado.

It may be here observed that Torres apparently wrote without having the charts before him, as he is vague and unreliable as to latitudes; that Prado's charts contain latitudes which agree with modern official maps; and that the Priests for whom Arias wrote had to rely, to a great extent, upon hearsay evidence and were not able to quote from either Torres or Prado, although it is possible that they had seen the general map of the work of the expedition referred to by Prado in one of his letters, and which is still missing.

In spite of short rations, rough winds and the unwillingness of his crew, Torres, after leaving Espiritu Santo, sailed south-west and claimed to have passed, by one degree, the latitude indicated by the sailing orders. In other words, he reached 21° S. He considered that he had thus proved Espiritu Santo to be an island. In reality he demonstrated that if it was a part of the mainland at all it must have been a cape jutting out from it to the northeast. Having now passed the "prescribed latitude" by a degree without seeing land, he altered his course to the north-west, and again (probably about the latitude of Princess Charlotte Bay, Queensland) to the north-east, and "FELL IN WITH THE BEGINNING OF NEW GUINEA," and after coasting to the west for five days, landed On what he named TIERA DE BUENAVENTURA on 18th July, 1606. Collingridge clearly identifies this land as BASILISK ISLAND, so named by Captain John Moresby, R.N., in 1873.[1] West of Basilisk Island lies Hayter Island, which is separated from New Guinea proper by the narrow China Strait.

Torres then sailed along the south coast of HAYTER ISLAND (which he failed to distinguish from the mainland of N. Guinea) and westward along the south coast of New Guinea, noting "many ports, very large, with large rivers and many plains." "In these parts," he says, "I took possession for Your Majesty," adding: "We caught in all this land twenty persons of different nations, that with them we might be able to give a better account to Your Majesty." Shoals extending to the west were skirted, and eventually cleared, according to Torres, in 11° S. lat.

Having thus passed through TORRES STRAIT, Torres hugged the coast of what is now DUTCH NEW GUINEA, mainly on a north-west course, landing in many places and "taking possession for Your Majesty," and noted that the natives had "iron, China bells and other things, by which we knew we were near the Molucas." At last the point was reached" where NEW GUINEA COMES TO AN END, fifty leagues before you reach the Molucas." Here the adventurers

[1) See Prado's Chart No. 2 and Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea and the D'Entrecasteaux Islands, London, 1876.]

found MAHOMEDAN RESIDENTS, with whom they traded for such of their immediate necessities as they could afford to pay for with cloth. The Mahomedans "gave them news of the events of the Molucas" and spoke of Dutch ships.

Torres in his report gives impossible latitudes in and about the GULF OF PAPUA, and the inference is inevitable that he was writing from memory and without having the charts of his voyage, or perhaps even his log, before him. Therefore, the southmost point (11°) at which he says he cleared the strait is open to grave doubt, especially as it is actually nineteen minutes south of Cape York.

Prado's No. 3 Chart[1] shows the expedition in "THE GREAT BAY OF ST. LAURENCE and PORT OF MONTEREY" modern ORANGERIE BAY), lat. 10° 25' (Prado has it 10° 10'), long. 149° 40', with the legend "Discovered by D. Luis Vaes de Torres, 10 August, 1606." This careful survey, which agrees admirably with modern charting, is sufficient evidence of a sojourn of at least a few days, while the sketched rectangular subdivision of the coast land into what are probably agricultural areas or PLANTATIONS suggests that the site was considered to be well adapted for a settlement.

In Prado's No. 4 Map, of the BAY OF S. PETER OF ARLANCA (lat. 3° 40' S., according to Prado, more correctly 3° 56', according to modern charts, long. 134° 7' E.), we have no difficulty in recognising, with Collingridge, TRITON BAY, in Dutch New Guinea, nor in identifying the "ISLA DEL CAPan. LUIS VAES DE TORRES" with the modern AIDUMA ISLAND. A legend on the map reads: "Discovered by D. Luis Vaes de Torres, 18th October, 1606."

THE PASSAGE OF TORRES STRAIT, therefore, took place between the dates of Torres' touching at Orangerie Bay, 0th August, and Triton Bay, 18th October. Considering that, once he had cleared the reefs and banks of the Gulf of Papua, and taken a north-westerly course along the Dutch New Guinea coast, his difficulties were over, it would only be reasonable to assign two-thirds of the time to the voyage east and one-third to that west of the turning-point. On this assumption, the approximate date of clearing the strait would be 24th September.

Torres' report was written at Manila and dated 12th July, 1607, and he states that he had been in that city for two months, thus fixing the date of his arrival at the PHILIPPINES approximately at 12th May.

The time employed between Triton Bay (18th October) and the Philippines (12th May), nearly seven months, has now to be accounted for. If we allow ten days for bargaining with the Mahomedans at Triton Bay and leaving New Guinea "where it comes to a termination fifty leagues before you come to the

[1) See Collingridge's Discovery of Australia, p. 251.]

Molucas," the time to be accounted for is narrowed to the period between 28th October and 12th May.

At the outside, the run from the west end of New Guinea to BATCHIAN (lat. 0° 37' S., long. 117° 36' E.), at the south-east end of the Moluccas, in a sea already well known to the Spanish, could hardly have taken more than a month, so that we may provisionally date Torres' arrival there at 28th November.

On his arrival at BATCHIAN, Torres met a priest who had about one hundred Christian followers, within the territory of a friendly Mahomedan king. The priest, says Torres, "begged me to subdue one of the Ternate islands inhabited by revolted Mahomedans, to whom Don Pedro de Acunha had given pardon in Your Majesty's name, which I had maintained; and I sent advice to the M. de Campo, Juan de Esquival, who governed the islands of Ternate, of my arrival, and demanded if it was expedient to give this assistance to the King of Batchian; to which he answered that it would be of great service to Your Majesty, if I brought force for that purpose. On this, with 40 Spaniards and 400 Moors of the King of Batchian, I made WAR, and in only four days I defeated them and took the fort and put the King of Batchian in possession of it in Your Majesty's name, to whom we administered the usual oaths, stipulating with him that he should never go to war against Christians and that he should ever be a faithful vassal to Your Majesty."

Assuming a week to have been occupied by the journey of Torres' messenger, and another week for the four-days' missionary war and preparations for the voyage, it was probably about 12th December when Torres himself sailed for TERNATE (lat. 0° 48' N., long. 127° 18' E.). He probably did not take more than three days to reach the latter port, say 15th December.

It is likely enough that Torres stayed for some time at Ternate, where he was well received by Esquival, the Governor, for he did not, as we have seen, arrive at MANILA till about 12th May, and the voyage of about 1,200 knots could hardly have taken five months.

The Moors, or Mahomedans, near the eastern extremity of New Guinea (Triton Bay?), says Torres, "gave us news of the events of the Molucas and told us of Dutch ships." Collingridge observes[1] that "the events of the Molucas were of a stirring nature at that time," and raises the question of whether the Dutch expedition of 1606 could have been sent out in consequence of the Dutch having heard of Torres' discoveries.

The "Duyfken's" cruise along the coasts of New Guinea and the Cape York Peninsula took place within the limits set by the yacht's departure from Bantam on 18th November, 1605, and its return in or before June, 1906. It is therefore simply impossible that the Dutch could have heard, prior to the despatch of the

[1) Discovery of Australia, p. 236.]

"Duyfken" of the doings of Torres, who only reached Ternate on 2th December, 1606. In fact the "Duyfken" had returned to port before Torres had got in touch with civilisation near the western extremity of New Guinea.

In Torres' narrative, there is not a word implying that he laid any claim to the discovery of a passage between New Guinea and Australia. On the contrary, everything points to his having made for a passage regarding which he was already in possession of some information, and there is a great deal of evidence that the passage had already been used many times by Spanish and Portuguese, although its existence was hidden from the Dutch and English. The fact that Prado carefully labels the charted landing-places on the south coast of New Guinea as having been discovered by Torres in no way supports the claim (which Torres never made) to the discovery of the strait itself.

The narrow sea (ninety-eight knots across) known as TORRES STRAIT, between New Guinea and Cape York, is crowded with islands and coral reefs, among which a newcomer would be lucky indeed, as well as bold and skilful, if he found an east and west passage. Modern surveys have laid down nine such practicable passages, known, in their order from north to south, as Napoleon, Bligh, Bramble, Yule, Simpson, Dayman, Prince of Wales, Normanby and Endeavour. The question is, by which of these did Torres clear the strait?

As Torres himself gives an impossible northern latitude for his voyage in the Gulf of Papua, and the southern latitude (11°) he assigns to the strait is no less impossible, for the reason that it would have brought him well into Queensland, there can be no doubt that he was speaking from memory, and in round numbers, without, for the time, having access to the documents which would have enabled him to make accurate statements. On the other hand, his description of the point where he was able to turn from a southerly to a north-westerly course is of the highest value. "Here," he says, "there were many large islands and there appeared to be more to the southward." Such a description would be ludicrously incorrect if written from any point of view whatever in 11° S. lat., but it fits admirably what would be seen by an observer passing through the BLIGH CHANNEL (10° 20' S.). This is the second channel which Torres could possibly have found, and I eliminate the first, or Napoleon, channel because it is obviously hard to enter and barely navigable without the aid of steam. Torres was, in fact, sailing west, with Jervis and the Belle Vue Islands on his right and the two large islands, Mulgrave and Banks, on his left, while catching glimpses of Hammond, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Horn and Prince of Wales Islands still further to the south. I cannot, therefore, agree with Collingridge's suggestion that CAPTAIN COOK in 1770 merely

rediscovered, in his Endeavour Strait, the channel used by Torres in 1606. No exception can be taken to the name of Torres being applied to the whole of the strait, but the merit of finding channels among its dangerous reefs is considerably greater than if the.reefs had been visible islands.