NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA

THREE CENTURIES OF EXPLORATION, DISCOVERY, AND ADVENTURE IN AND AROUND THE CAPE YORK PENINSULA, QUEENSLAND

WITH

A STUDY OF THE NARRATIVES OF ALL EXPLORERS BY SEA AND LAND IN THE LIGHT OF MODERN CHARTING, MANY ORIGINAL OR HITHERTO UNPUBLISHED DOCUMENTS, THIRTY-NINE ILLUSTRATIONS, AND SIXTEEN SPECIALLY PREPARED MAPS

BY

ROBERT LOGAN JACK

LL.D., F.R.G.S., F.G.S., M.INST.M.M.

EX-GOVERNMENT GEOLOGIST, QUEENSLAND, PREVIOUSLY OF THE GEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF SCOTLAND
AUTHOR OF
"HANDBOOK OF QUEENSLAND GEOLOGY"; "THE MINERAL WEALTH OF QUEENSLAND";
"THE BACK BLOCKS OF CHINA," ETC.
AND JOINT-AUTHOR (WITH ROBERT ETHERIDGE, JUNIOR) OF
"THE GEOLOGY AND PALAEONTOLOGY OF QUEENSLAND AND NEW GUINEA"

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I

CONTENTS

VOLUME. I

(There are 50 chapters in Volume I. Chapters 1 to 10 are included in this ebook.)

I. INTRODUCTION
II. AUSTRALIA DISTINCT FROM NEW GUINEA. MAGELHAEN, QUIROS AND TORRES
III. VOYAGE OF THE "DUYFKEN" TO NEW GUINEA AND THE CAPE YORK PENINSULA, 1605-6
IV. THE VOYAGE OF THE "PERA" AND "AERNEM," 1623: I. THE SAILING ORDERS
V. THE VOYAGE OF THE "PERA" AND "AERNEM," 1623, continued: II. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE EXPEDITION AND ON THE "PERA" NARRATIVE
VI. THE VOYAGE OF THE "PERA" AND "AERNEM," 1623, continued: III. THE OUTWARD VOYAGE
VII. THE VOYAGE OF THE "PERA" AND "AERNEM," 1623, continued: IV. THE RETURN VOYAGE OF THE "PERA"
VIII. THE VOYAGE OF THE "PERA" AND "AERNEM," 1623, continued: V. THE "AERNEM"
IX. TASMAN'S VOYAGE OF 1644
X. VOYAGES OF THE "BUIJS" AND "RIJDER," 1756: VAN ASSCHENS AND GONZAL

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NORTHMOST AUSTRALIA

CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

The Cape York Peninsula, forming, as it does, the link binding the two great islands of Australia and New Guinea, is necessarily of the highest importance from a geological, ethnological, zoological, botanical, historical, political and strategical point of view.

It so happens that the Peninsula is the first part of Australia to which authentic written history refers. On the earliest landing of Europeans there arose the complex questions which obtrude themselves whenever civilisation comes into contact with barbarism.

My practical interest in the Peninsula began with a tour made in 1879 in the course of my Geological Survey work. On my way to the recently rushed and still more recently abandoned "Coen" gold diggings, I crossed the base of the then almost unknown Cape Melville Peninsula, where I found indications of auriferous country, and also the rivers south of Princess Charlotte Bay, down which the unfortunate explorer Kennedy had struggled in vain to keep his appointment with the relief ship twenty-two years earlier. From the Coen, I was only able to push out to the north for a period inexorably limited by the condition of my horses and the quantity of food remaining in my saddle-bags. Even under these conditions, however, I penetrated for some distance into the McIlwraith Range, and on the heads of the river which I named the Peach (unaware that it was the river named the Archer by the Brothers Jardine, who crossed it near its mouth) I found widespread evidence of the presence of gold and tin.

From the Laura Telegraph Office, from Cooktown, and ultimately from my headquarters at Townsville, I made such communications as were possible in anticipation of a complete report to the head of the Department of Mines, which administered the Geological Survey.

My individual impression was that the reefs in the district traversed were of more importance than the alluvial gold, but there had been neither means nor time at my disposal to enable me to satisfy myself of the value of either, and this view I duly represented in my correspondence with the Department.

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The desire of the Government, and of the eager diggers throughout Queensland, was to discover an alluvial goldfield on the pattern of the Palmer, which was by that time approaching exhaustion.

A party of miners, headed by James Crosbie, volunteered to go and settle the question of the existence of payable alluvial gold, and they asked for and obtained government assistance, and I was instructed to lead them to the spot. In addition, a prospecting party was equipped, with money subscribed in Cook-town, and sent out to anticipate the expedition subsidised by the Government.

The combined geological and prospecting parties left Cooktown on 26th November, 1879, and striking out from the "bend of the Kennedy" on the Cooktown-Palmerville road, reached the "Peach" (Archer) River on 20th December. The prospectors commenced operations at once, and were rewarded with "prospects" which led them into the jungle-clad recesses of the McIlwraith Range. Here, to their disappointment, although prospects were obtained here and there, the creeks and gullies were found to run over almost bare rocks, their beds being too steep for the retention of any quantity of alluvial "washdirt." On 30th December, the wet season set in. For the remainder of our time in the field, the creeks were too swollen for the "bottom" to be reached where there was any washdirt at all, or the ground was too sodden to carry our horses. There were long and vexatious delays when it was neither possible to work nor to travel. Nevertheless, we continued, during breaks in the bad weather, to cross the McIlwraith Range and touch the Macrossan Range. Regaining the summit of the McIlwraith Range, we followed it to its northern extremity, where the valley of the Pascoe River separates it from the mountain mass which we named the Janet Range. It was found that the Pascoe River bounds the Janet Range on the south and east, and we practically followed it down till we had finally to cross it where it took an easterly course towards the Pacific. We had already made up our minds that it was safer to chance the unknown in the north than to return to Cooktown across several great rivers, now all certain to be flooded. No sooner had we left the Pascoe than we entered on the Bad Lands or Wet Desert of "heath" and "scrub" without anything for horses to live on. From the Pascoe to the Escape River, our course must have coincided in many places with Kennedy's on his "forlorn hope" journey, and we repeated many of his experiences, as told by his surviving companion Jackey-Jackey, but happily not the series of disasters which resulted in his own death and the disasters which overtook the two parties he left behind to await the relief he went to bring. The natives displayed in our case, as in Kennedy's, a persistent hostility which hampered our

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movements and partially incapacitated me during the final stages of the journey. Horses died of starvation or poison, and the men of the party were running perilously short of food--the journey having been prolonged beyond our calculations--when we reached Somerset on 3rd April, 1880.

Kennedy's maps and journals (1848) perished with him, and what we know of his expedition is taken (as far north as the Pascoe River) from the narrative written by William Carron, one of the three survivors, and (north of the Pascoe) from the "statement" of the black boy Jackey-Jackey, another of the survivors and the only one of the thirteen men to make the complete journey from Rockingham Bay to Somerset. The Geological and Prospecting Party's route only coincided for a short distance, from the head of the Jardine River to its westward bend, with that of the Jardine Brothers (1865). Day after day, during the whole of my journey, I was mapping the mountain ranges, rivers and other features of the country, checking my latitudes by star-observations whenever the night sky was clear enough, and as far as charting was concerned we were in virgin ground.

My report on the two expeditions was completed at my Townsville office in the winter of 1880 and sent to the Minister for Mines, Brisbane, with the relative map, which had taken a good deal of time, subject to interruptions by other duties. The report was printed and officially issued on 14th September, 1881, without my having had any opportunity of seeing it through the press, and to my astonishment the map--which might have been supposed to be of the first importance--was omitted. What became of the map and of my office copy will be seen in Chapter LXVII.

After the map had reached Brisbane and before my report was published, my map had been reduced to a smaller scale and embodied in official maps issued by the Department of Lands. In that form, however, my charting was open, in parts, to an interpretation which I could never have sanctioned.

In 1913, when.I had been out of the government service for about fourteen years, and when for the first time some degree of leisure had begun to fall to my share, I commenced to prepare a revised and corrected issue of the report, with its map reconstructed from my notes, with the intention of offering it to the Government for republication (the report itself having been long out of print). Some progress had been made when my friend James Dick, of Cooktown, sent me proofs of a pamphlet in which he proposed to summarise the narrative of the Geological and Prospecting Expeditions. When I had gone over the proofs, correcting them only in so far as statements of fact were concerned, I fully realised how misleading my original narrative must have been, misprinted as it was, and unaccompanied by the map which

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formed its most essential part. I resumed my task with renewed vigour, and with a wider scope, and Mr. Dick, up to the date of his death, assisted me in many ways through his local and personal knowledge, happily of more recent date than mine. I am grateful to his memory, and am conscious that he was, in a sense, "the only begetter of these ensuing lines."

Between 1880 and 1913, a great deal of charting of the interior had been accomplished by the Departments of Lands and Mines, although even now that work is incomplete. The new lines gave me, when I was recharting the lost map, an opportunity of correcting my sketching to correspond with actual surveys.

The first lesson to force itself upon me was that my estimates of distances covered had been influenced by fatigue or difficulties on the one hand (leading to over-estimation) or by good-going and good-feeding for the horses on the other (leading to underestimation).

The second lesson was that, even in the direction of my course, I had in many instances strayed to the right or left, as a ship may steer a definite course and yet make leeway owing to the pressure of forces incorrectly estimated, or even not recognised. In short, the personal equation had to be introduced and allowed for before I could hope to reconcile my supposed with my actual position on any given date.

Long before I had finished the revision of my own narrative, it had become evident that its significance could not be fully understood without a critical study of the diaries of explorers who had gone before me and whose paths I had crossed from time to time. This led me back from Mulligan to Leichhardt, and as one by one the writings of honoured pioneers came under my review, I subjected them to the tests already applied to my own, and to the best of my ability substituted where the writers were for where they thought they were, and made the necessary allowances and corrections. Then it seemed that the story might as well be continued to the present date by the addition of the developments which have taken place since 1880 through the instrumentality of surveyors, explorers and prospectors. Some of the actors are, happily, still alive, and these have rendered material assistance by the contribution of original matter. Among these are Webb, Bradford, Paterson and Embley. To the last-named gentleman, especially, I am indebted for assistance rendered doubly valuable by his prolonged residence in the Peninsula, and which, in some parts of the work, almost amounted to collaboration.

While dealing with land explorers it was borne in upon me that they owed some of their difficulties and many of their errors to an imperfect comprehension of the work of earlier maritime explorers. They were not, indeed, to be blamed for this, as in few instances could they have perused the narratives or seen the

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charts of the sea-adventurers. As it was, the Dutch sailors named "reviers," or inlets, on the Gulf coast, and subsequent explorers of the interior, almost without exception, made bad guesses at the connection of their rivers with the inlets on the coast line. I do not propose any reform so drastic as to restore their original names to the western rivers of the Peninsula, but content myself, after years of research, with distinguishing the original, or right, or de lure names from the de facto names, the product of pardonable misidentifications sanctioned, in many cases, by half a century of popular and official usage. I have, I hope, succeeded in making it clear that, in many instances, the de facto names are in reality not those bestowed by the earliest explorers, but rather what are called "complimentary" names.

From the preceding explanation, it will be understood that this work began, so to speak, in the middle, and followed lines dictated by the questions which arose during its progress. It was ultimately realised that it would be advisable to arrange it in chronological order, so that the tale told by each explorer might be compared with the facts ascertained by his predecessors and at the same time be complete in itself. Of no less importance was the consideration of precisely how much knowledge each explorer had of the achievements of his predecessors; and this point has exacted very careful study. I am forced to the conclusion that in most instances the later explorers knew very little about their predecessors, having taken what little they knew at second hand and without having had access to important documents, some of which, indeed, only came to light after their own time.

While aiming at chronological order, it must be conceded that it is not always possible to observe it strictly. It may be that the stories of two observers overlap; or a statement may demand historical investigation into the past; or, again, it may be convenient at once to trace the outcome of a newly discovered fact downwards to the present time. Hence a certain amount of repetition is inevitable, as facts or statements are viewed by one observer after another from a different angle.

It is impossible to define the exact base of the Cape York Peninsula, and in writing of it one must occasionally follow its pioneers beyond its southern boundary, however liberal or elastic the definition of the latter may be. The historian of France needs no excuse for referring to happenings in Germany or Italy. In a parallel way, what was commenced as a history of the Cape York Peninsula has come to include Torres Strait, the "Gulf" country west to the boundary of Queensland and the Pacific country as far south as Bowen.

SYDNEY,
30th September, 1920.

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CHAPTER II

AUSTRALIA DISTINCT FROM NEW GUINEA. MAGELHAEN, QUIROS AND TORRES

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 t0 sources of information other than Dutch.

Collingridge adduces2] 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.]

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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) I7½ Spanish leagues= 1 geographical degree.]

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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.

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MAGELHAEN AND CANO

MAGELHAEN, a Portuguese who had taken service with Spain, set out with five vessels from Luzar on loth 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.]

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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, 16o5. 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 protege 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 Penin'sula 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

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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 3o° 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 Australis, by J. E. Heeres, LL.D. Leiden and London, 1899. Life of Tasman, by J. E. Heeres, fol. London, 1898.]

{Page 12}

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.

{Page 13}

There is reason to believe that Quiros was influenced in his decision to steer WNW. n0 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 I0° 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

{Page 14}

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 itwas 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 t0 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.]

{Page 15}

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

{Page 16}

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

{Page 17}

at once future explorers would have foll0wed 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 (I) 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.]

{Page 18}

the King of Spain, (2) Prado's Charts and Letters and (3) the Arias Memorial. In the order in which these became known t0 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.]

{Page 19}

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 Trit0n 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.]

{Page 20}

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.]

{Page 21}

"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 (11º) 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

{Page 22}

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.

{Page 23}

CHAPTER III

VOYAGE OF THE "DUYFKEN" TO NEW GUINEA AND THE CAPE YORK PENINSULA, 1605-6

EARLY PORTUGUESE AND SPANISH KNOWLEDGE OF NEW GUINEA. DUTCH POSSESSIONS IN THE EAST. "DUYFKEN" VISITS CERAM TO COLLECT INFORMATION ABOUT NEW GUINEA (1603). "DUYFKEN'S" VOYAGE TO NEW GUINEA (1605-6). NINE MEN KILLED BY NATIVES IN NEW GUINEA PROPER. TORRES STRAIT PASSED UNOBSERVED. SOUTHWARD ALONG EASTERN SHORE OF GULF OF CARPENTARIA. A MAN KILLED BY NATIVES AT CARPENTIER INLET. "DUYFKEN" TURNS BACK AT CAPE KEERWEER.

"THE discovery of NEW GUINEA is most commonly credited to the Portuguese. In the early days, these people--then famous for their brave efforts in exploration and settlement--held Malacca[1] and the Spice Islands (i.e., the Moluccas). In 1527, one Jorgo de Meneses was sent from Malacca to the latter islands. He attempted a new route by going round the north of Borneo, and is said to have then discovered New Guinea. He called the new island Papua, because of the fact that the natives of the Molucca Islands called the New Guinea aborigines 'Papuans,' on account of their woolly hair. Next in order came the Spanish navigator Alvaro de Saavedra, in 1537. In 1545 his countryman Ortis de- Retes, proceeding to take a more southerly course to the Moluccas, in order to catch more favourable winds, sighted the island, and imagined he was the discoverer, and named it Nueva Guinea. The island first appeared on Mercator's chart of 1569."[2]

The Dutch had been more or less in possession of Java since 1597, but even within the first decade the necessity for expansion had begun to be felt, and had a spur been needed it would have been supplied by the rivalry excited by the comings and goings of the Spanish and Portuguese. The Dutch "General United East India Company," founded in 1602, was a power in the East for three centuries, until its functions were absorbed by the Government of the Netherlands.

On 0th April, 1602, at Banda Island, on board the ship "Gelderlant," a general meeting of ships' officers was held by order of Admiral Wolphert Hermanszoon. The meeting drew up instructions for the yacht "Duyffken" [sic], Skipper Willem Corneliszoon Schouten, and Supercargo Claes Gaeff.

The ship was to proceed to the island of Ceran [sic], calling at certain ports, e.g., Queuin, Quelibara, Quelilonhen and Goulegoulij, where trade might be expected, and to enquire whether anything was to be had besides sago, what was the commerce of

[1) (Malay Peninsula.)]

[2) "Kaiser's Lost Domain, Late German New Guinea. Early Settlement and Development," in Sydney Morning Herald, 27th May, 1916.]

{Page 24}

the port and to what places, what commodities were in demand, how far their navigation had extended, if they knew anything of Nova Guinea, and if they had sent ships there or had been visited by ships from that country.

The above instructions were entered in the "Gelderlanes" log of 10th April, 1602, and under date 15th May following a

note gives what appears to be a brief summary of the report brought back by the "Duyfken":--

"They [the Ceramites, when interrogated] can say nothing definite respecting the island of New Guinea, but say that white people live on the south side, inhabited by Portuguese, but they had seen no Portuguese ships. They can give no information about their [the New Guineans'] commerce and products."[1]

The language of the note is somewhat involved, but it may be taken to mean "white people, possibly Portuguese." Portugal had been in possession of the Molucca Islands, then usually referred to as the Spice Islands, since 1512, and it is more than likely that in the course of nearly a century her sailors had acquired some knowledge of the not very distant southern coast of New Guinea proper and had even spent some time on the land.

In 1605, Jan Willemszoon Verschoor, Manager of the Dutch East India Company at Bantam, Java, sent out the "Duyfken" on a voyage of discovery, under command of WILLEM JANSZOON. The Subcargo (Junior Supercargo?) was JAN LODEWIJS VAN ROSINGIJN.

There is much room for doubt as to whether the "Duyfken" was (1) the 60-ton yacht of the expedition which was equipped in 1603, was commanded by Steven van der Hagen, and came out to the East Indies, or (2) the 30-ton yacht attached to the expedition which left the Texel in Holland on 2nd April, 1595, and which sailed by Madagascar, reaching the south-west coast of Sumatra on 1st June, 1596, called at Bali in 1597, turned back on 26th February of that year, and returned to Holland via the south coast of Java and the Cape of Good Hope, reaching the Texel on 14th August, 1597.[2]

No description of van der Hagen's 60-ton "Duyfken" is available, beyond the statement of her tonnage. The Texel "Duyfken" is described as "a small yacht of 30 tons, carrying 20 men, and having 2 large and 6 small guns, with 2 bombards," and her master was Simon Lambertsz(oon) Mau. The other vessels of the expedition were of 400, 400, and 200 tons respectively. It is reasonable to suppose that this "Duyfken" acted as a tender to the larger vessels, and it is unlikely that in addition to her armament and twenty men she could have had carrying

[1) The Part borne by the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia, 1606-1765, by J. E. Heeres, LL.D., Professor at the Dutch Colonial Institute, Delft. Published by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society in Commemoration of the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of its Foundation. Leiden, E. J. Brill; London, Luzac and Co., 1889, p. 3.]

[2) Collingridge, pp. 216, 222, 240.]

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capacity for native "trade" and stores for her crew sufficient for a voyage of seven months. In the course of the voyage on which she is first heard of, she probably drew supplies periodically from the larger ships of the expedition. I incline, therefore, to the opinion that the 60-ton yacht was the one which Willem Janszoon commanded from November, 1605, to June, 1606.

The "Duyfken" left BANTAM for New Guinea on 28th November, 1605, and was back at BANDA ISLAND in or before June, 1606. Janszoon visited KEI and ARU ISLANDS and made the coast of NEW GUINEA in 5° south latitude. He then followed the land south-eastward, passing TORRES STRAIT without settling the question of whether or not there was a passage, although less than six months later TORRES left the New Hebrides and made for the strait, evidently guided by previous information. Still under the impression that he was off the New Guinea coast, Janszoon kept the land in sight to 131 degrees of south latitude. Instructions drawn up for the use of ABEL TASMAN in 1644 refer to the "Duyfken's" voyage in these terms:--

"It being ascertained that vast regions were for the greater part uncultivated and certain parts inhabited by savage, cruel, black barbarians, who slew some of our sailors, so that no information was obtained touching the exact lie of the country or the commodities obtainable or in demand there; our men having, from want of provisions and other necessaries, been compelled to return and abandon the discovery they had begun, only registering in their chart, by the name of KEERWEER, the extreme point of the discovered land in 13¾° south latitude[1] [correctly, 13° 58' S.]."

JOHN SARIS, an English shipmaster, resided in Bantam for five years in the capacity of factor for the English East India Company, which had been established in 1600.[2] He kept a diary, in which the following entries obviously deal with the "Duyfken," although the vessel is not named:--

"18th Nov., 1605 [old style = 28th November, new style].--Heere departed a small Pinasse of the Flemmings[3] for the discovery of the land called Nova Guinea, which, it is said, affordeth great store of Gold.

"15th June, 1606 [old style = 25th June, new style].--Heere arrived Nockhoda [i.e., Skipper] Tingall, a Kling man from Banda, in a Java Juncke..He told me that the Flemmings[3] Pinasse which went upon discovery for Nova Ginny was returned to Banda, having found the iland; but on sending their men on shoare to intreate of Trade, there were nine of them killed by the Heathens, which are man- eaters. So they were constrained to returne, finding no good to be done there."

The States of Holland and West Friesland had given the (Dutch) GENERAL UNITED EAST INDIA COMPANY certain advice

[1) Quoted by Heeres, p. 5.]

[2) Observations of Captain John Saris of Occurrents which happened in the East Indies during his Abode at Bantam, from October, 1605, till October, 1609, in Hakluytus Posthumus or Purchas, His Pilgrimes. By Samuel Purchas, B.D., vol. iii, p. 490, of new edition. Glasgow, James Maclehose and Sons, MCMV.]

[3) Heeres, translating into Dutch, substitutes "Hollandse" for "FIemnings."]

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touching a charter for the Australia Company, and a Memorandum, dated 2nd August, 1618, was laid before the East India Company as a basis for the reply. It is argued in this document that the Australia Company should be excluded from the southern parts between the meridian of the east end of Ceylon and that lying 100 miles east of the Solomon Islands, because the East India Company had already busied itself with this part of New Guinea, instancing the explorations, about 1606, by the "Duyve" ("Duyfken") by Skipper Willem Janszoon and Supercargo Jan Lodovijkszoon van Rosingijn, "who made sundry discoveries on the said coast of Nova Guinea, as is AMPLY SET FORTH IN THEIR JOURNALS." Heeres remarks that therefore the journals 0f the expedition must have been extant in 1618. They were extant, I have no doubt, in 1623, when CARSTENSZOON sailed the "Pera" along the west coast of Cape York Peninsula. Indeed, a close reading of the "Pera's" log gives the impression that the "Duyfken's" charts and journals were the daily study of the officers of the "Pera." Yet there is no reference in Tasman's instructions, drawn up in 1644, to the charts and journals of the "Duyfken."

The "Pera's" log, hereinafter quoted at length, contains the following entry, dated 11th May, 1623:--

"In the afternoon we sailed past a large river (which the men of the 'Duyfken' went up with a boat in 1606, and where one of them was killed by the missiles thrown by the blacks). To this river, which is in lat. 11° 48', we have given the name of REVIER DE CARPENTIER[1] in the new chart."

I take this to be evidence of Carstenszoon's familiarity with the "Duyfken's" charts and journals.

There is no absolute certainty that any of the "Duyfken's" men, who "went up" the Carpentier River "in a boat," set foot on the land. The man killed by missiles may have been speared in the boat. If any of the crew landed, this is the EARLIEST RECORDED LANDING Of white men in Australia.

The exact locality of the greater disaster which, according to the Kling skipper, resulted in the death of nine of the "Duyfken's" crew, is not stated. It may, however, be presumed that the slaughter took place at CAPE KEERWEER, and finally determined the abandonment of the enterprise. The loss of nine men, added to the loss of one at the Carpentier River, must have left a 30-or even a 60-ton vessel very short-handed.

The probability that the Duyfken "made still another voyage to New Guinea, including possibly the Cape York Peninsula, has been argued from the following passage in A Narrative and journal of the Voyage made from Bantam to the Coast of Choromandel and

[1) This river is now named the SKARDON (see Queensland 4-mile Map, Sheet 21A).]

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"On the 4th of March, 1607, through God's mercy, arrived before the Castle [of Victoria, Amboyna]...Here we found the yacht Duyfken' which had come from Nova Guinea [was van Nova Guinea gekommen]."[1]

When van Solt arrived at Amboyna, only nine months had elapsed since the "Duyf ken" had put in to Banda on her return from her famous voyage. She might very well have made another voyage to New Guinea in that time, but on the other hand, she may only have been pointed out to van Solt as the vessel which had made the adventurous and disastrous voyage, the fame of which had not yet been forgotten.

At the time when Torres made his way through the strait between New Guinea and Australia--a strait which had probably been known to others before him--and when Janszoon sailed past the western opening of the passage and coasted Australia for 250 miles to the south, never doubting that he was following the coastline of New Guinea, Queen Elizabeth was not long dead and William Shakespeare was still a living force. The events occurring in the Cape York Peninsula some three centuries later were contemporaneous with the gay adventure of Germany in setting forth, carrying "sword and fire, red ruin and the breaking up of realms," for the acquisition of "world-domination," her title being that she was strong enough to take whatever she coveted, and found instead the "downfall" which had been ironically alluded to in her boasting as the absurd and wholly unimaginable alternative.

Through the first three centuries of Australian history, contemporary events in Europe affected more or less the course of exploration. The reader will be apt to reflect, as an example, 0n the bearing of the Napoleonic wars on the career of Flinders, and I venture to assert that Australian history is no isolated phenomenon, but will be best understood by a reader who can picture to himself what, at any given date, was happening in other portions of the globe.

[1) Heeres, p. 6.]

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CHAPTER IV

THE VOYAGE OF THE "PERA" AND "AERNEM" (1623)

MINUTE SUMMARY OF PREVIOUS DISCOVERIES AND FAILURES. INSTRUCTIONS TO EXPLORE AND SURVEY THE COAST OF THE SOUTH LAND AND INQUIRE INTO ITS COMMERCIAL RESOURCES. To MAKE TREATIES WITH NATIVE KINGS. To TAKE POSSESSION OF ANY LAND OF SUFFICIENT VALUE. To CAPTURE SOME NATIVES, WHO MAY IN TIME GIVE USEFUL INFORMATION.

REPORTS having reached Batavia of the loss of the English ship "Triall" and the perilous experiences of three Dutch ships, the "Wapen van Hoorn," "Amsterdam" and "Dordrecht," on the north-western coast of Australia, the Governor and Council of the East India Company at Batavia resolved to dispatch an expedition for further explorations of the Southern Land. Instructions were accordingly made out for the yachts "Haring" and "Hasewint." Unforeseen circumstances having, however, prevented these yachts carrying out the orders, they were taken over by the "Pera" and "Aernem."

The full text of the instructions is given by PROFESSOR HEERES in his Commemoration Volume, 'The Part borne by the Dutch,' together with an English translation by Mr. C. Stoffel. The latter is followed hereunder, except that I have occasionally employed an English word or two which appeared "more agreeable to the text" than the expression selected by the translator.

"INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE YACHTS 'HARINGH' AND 'HASEWINT,' SELECTED FOR THE JOINT EXPLORATION OF THE SOUTHERN LAND."

INASMUCH as our Superiors earnestly enjoin us to despatch hence some yachts, with the object of making discoveries in the Southern Land; and since, moreover, experience has taught, through great perils incurred by several of our ships, and still more through the destruction of the English ship 'Trial' on the said coast, how necessary it is to have full and accurate knowledge of the true position of this land, so that further misfortunes may henceforth be prevented as much as is possible; and as, moreover, it is desirable that this land, or any inhabited portion thereof, should be explored, so as to ascertain whether any trade with them might be worth while;

"THEREFORE, for the purpose before mentioned, we have resolved to fit out the yachts ' Haringh' [herring] and ' Hasewint' to undertake the voyage and to discover as much regarding the resources of these regions as God Almighty shall permit.

"You will accordingly set sail from here together, run out of Sunda Strait, and steer your course from the western extremity of Java to the South Land, keeping as

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close to the wind as ever you can, so as not to be driven too far west by the southeasterly winds which generally prevail in these waters. You may therefore run on as far as the thirty-second or thirty-third degree if you do not before that fall in with the land. If you should have sailed so far, and yet have seen no land, you may conclude[1] that you have fallen off too far westward, for sundry ships coming from the fatherland have accidentally come upon the South Land before these latitudes. In this case, you will have to shape your course eastward and run on in that direction until you sight land.

"In running over to the South Land aforesaid, you will have to keep a careful lookout, as soon as you get in 14° or 15°, seeing that the said English ship Triall,' when in 20° 10' S. lat., got on certain sunken rocks, which, according to the observation of the English pilot, extend for 7 miles north-east and south-west, although no dry land was visible. Nevertheless, the men who saved themselves in the pinnace and boat and arrived here stated that about 13° or 14° they had seen masses of reeds, wood and other drift floating about in the sea, from which they concluded that there must be land or islands somewhere in the neighbourhood. The aforesaid sunken rocks on which the Triall' was wrecked ought, according to the report of the Englishmen, to be due south of the west cape of Java.

"Having reached the South Land in the said latitude or near it, you will then sail along the same as far as lat. 50°, in case the land extends so far south, but if the land should come to an end before you have oversailed the said latitude, and should be found to trend eastward, you may follow it in that direction for a little, but if you find no further southward extension possible, you had better turn back. You will do the same if the land should turn westward. On the return voyage you will run along the coast as far as it extends to the north, and next eastward or otherwise as the land goes, and thus follow the land as close and as far as possible and as you judge your provisions will suffice for the return home, even if, in so doing, you should sail round the whole land and emerge to southward.

"The main object for which you are dispatched on this occasion is that from 45 or 50 degrees, or from the furthest point to which the said land shall be found to extend southward between these latitudes, up to the northmost end of the South Land, you are to discover and survey all capes, forelands, bays, lands, islands, rocks, reefs, sandbanks, deeps, shallows, roadsteads, winds, currents and whatever else appertains to the same, so that they may be charted and noted, with their true latitudes, longitudes, bearings and conditions. You will moreover land in various places and carefully observe whether they are inhabited, and what sort of people and country there are, what towns and villages there are, their government, their religion, their policy, their war-equipment, their waters, their vessels, their fisheries, and their commodities and manufactures, and more especially what minerals they have, such as gold, silver, tin, iron, lead and copper, as well as precious stones and pearls, and what vegetables, animals and fruits these lands afford.

"To all of which particulars and whatever else may be worth noting you will pay diligent attention, keeping a careful record or journal with reference thereto, that we may get full information of all your doings and experiences and the Company may obtain due and perfect knowledge of the natural resources of these lands in return for their heavy outlay.

"To all the places which you touch at, you will give appropriate names, choosing for the same either the names of the United Provinces or of the towns therein, or any other dignified names. Of all which places, lands and islands, the Commander and Officers of the said yachts will, by order and pursuant to the Commission of The Honourable the Governor-General, Jan Peterszoon Coen, sent out there [i.e., to the East Indies] by their High Mightinesses the States General of the United Netherlands, together with Messieurs the Directors of the General Chartered United East India Company in these parts, by solemn declaration signed by the Ships' Councils, take formal possession, and in token thereof, besides, erect a stone column in such places as

[1) It will be observed that no direct observation for longitude is suggested.]

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shall be taken possession of, on which should be recorded in bold, legible characters the year, the month, the day of the week and the date, the person by whom, and when such possession has been taken on behalf of the States General above mentioned. You will likewise endeavour to enter into friendly relations and make covenants with as such kings and nations as you shall happen to fall in with, and prevail upon them to place themselves under the protection of the States of the United Netherlands; of which covenants and treaties you will likewise cause proper documents to be exchanged with the other parties.

"All lands, islands, places, etc., which you shall take possession of, as aforesaid, you will duly mark in the chart, with their true latitude, longitude and bearings, together with the names newly conferred on the same.

"According to the oath of allegiance which each of you, jointly and severally has sworn to the Lords States General, His Princely Excellency and Messieurs the Directors, none of you shall be allowed to secrete, or by underhand means to retai any written documents, journals, drawings or observations touching the expedition but every one of you shall be bound on his return here faithfully to deliver up the same without exception.

"According to the writings of Jan Van Huygen [van Linschoten] and the opinion of several others, some parts of this South Land are likely to yield gold, a point in which you should inquire as carefully as possible.

"We also give you, for an experiment, divers ironwares, cloths, 'coast' dress [Heeres explains, in a footnote, 'from the coast of Coromandel'] and linen stuff which you will show and try to dispose of to such people as you may meet with, always carefully noting what articles are found to be most in demand, what quantities might be disposed of, and what might be obtained in exchange for them. We also send samples of gold, silver, copper, iron, lead and pearls, that you may inquire whether these articles are known to the inhabitants and might be obtained there in any reasonable quantity.

"In landing anywhere you will exercise extreme caution, and never go ashore inland unless well armed, trusting no one, however simple the people may appear be, or how plausible, but be always ready to stand on the defensive, so that no disaster may overtake you, such as, God knows, has often happened in like cases. Should people come out to you from the land, you will take the like care that they suffer no harm from our men.

"Coming to the northern extremity and east side of the South Land, you will diligently enquire whether any sandalwood, nutmegs, cloves, or other aromatic fruits grow there. Item, if there are any good harbours or conveniently situated or fruitful lands, where colonies might be planted which might be amply self-supporting. In a word, let nothing pass you unobserved, and whatever you find bring us a full and particular report of it, by which you will do the States of the United Netherlands service and lay up special honour for yourselves.

"In places where you meet with people, you will, by dexterity [behendlicheyt] or otherwise, get hold of some adults, or, still better, young lads or girls, to the end that they should be brought up here, and later, when opportunity offers, be broken in at the said quarters.

"The command of these two yachts is given to JAN Vos, who, during the voyage will carry the flag, convene the Council and preside therein, by virtue of Our Special Commission granted to the above-named Vos for that purpose.

"Given in Fort Jacatra the 29th September, Ao. 1622."

No better instructions could have been drawn up to serve the guidance of sailors setting out on a voyage of discovery with the object of acquiring geographical and commercial knowledge (although some clauses indicating what was expected, such as the references to kings and nations and treaties of alliance, may bring

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a smile on the faces of those who have come to know what was the actual condition of affairs. In other parts, the language employed is intentionally and diplomatically ambiguous. A notable instance

is the instruction regarding the CAPTURE OF SLAVES. The word "behendlicheyt" meaning literally "hardihood," might be rendered as dexterity, adroitness, ingenuity, strategy, smartness, trickery or treachery, and the addition of "or otherwise" left no room for delicate scruples. The sailors made no mistake in interpreting their orders to mean that they were to capture slaves, with a minimum of friction, if possible, but in any case to capture them somehow. It is not so written, but it is easy to understand that the voyagers were expected, by the capture of "adults, or, still better, young lads or girls," to do something substantial towards recouping the expenses of the expedition. Ample evidence will be found in the log of the "Pera," which carried out the instructions originally drawn up for the "Harengh" and "Hasewint," that this was the true meaning of the instructions. One hundred and thirty-three years later, the Dutch ship "Rijder" was carrying on the same tactics as were employed by the "Pera," and on the same western shore of the Cape York Peninsula. Even while the "Pera" was at sea, Torres was at work on the same lines, for his Spanish masters, on the southern shores of New Guinea; only he was more successful, as he records with satisfaction that in the course of the voyage he had captured twenty persons.

Early in the seventeenth century, the idea that there was anything reprehensible in slavery had barely suggested itself to the European mind, and I desire to point out that the Dutch were neither better nor worse than their contemporaries. If their proceedings appear simply abominable to readers in the twentieth century, there can be no doubt that those of their contemporary rivals were dictated by the same principles and carried out by the same methods.

At the present day we are confronted by the spectacle of savage populations dying out wherever they come in contact with comparatively civilised men. Belated Christianity, benevolence, philanthropy, charity or fair dealing seem alike powerless to arrest the working of what appears to be a natural law. In these circumstances, it is open to argument that for savage races a probationary period of SERVITUDE is preferable to its only alternative, EXTINCTION.

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CHAPTER V

THE VOYAGE OF THE "PERA" AND "AERNEM" (1623)

II. GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ON THE EXPEDITION AND ON THE "PERA" NARRATIVE

SAILING ORDERS FOR THE SHIPS, WITH A "COVERING LETTER" CONTAINING FURTHER INSTRUCTIONS. JOURNAL OF JAN CARSTENSZOON, COMMODORE, KEPT ON THE "PERA." ENGLISH TRANSLATION. THE COMMAND OF THE SHIPS AND THE "FULL COUNCIL." CAPTAIN OF THE 64 AERNEM" AND NINE OTHERS KILLED BY NATIVES OF NEW GUINEA PROPER. EXPEDITION PASSED "TORRES STRAIT" SATISFIED THAT IT WAS ONLY A SHALLOW BIGHT AND THAT THE CAPE YORK PENINSULA FORMED PART OF NEW GUINEA.

THE history of the voyages of the "Pera" and "Aernem" in 1623 may be studied in the original records of the Dutch East India Company by those who have the opportunity. They consist, in the first place, of a "covering letter," dated 3rd January, 1624, from the Governor-General and Council to the Directors of the Company, and secondly, what is entitled Journal kept by Jan Carstensz.(oon) on his Voyage to Nova Guinea.

The letter states that, in January, 1623, Governor VAN SPEULT dispatched from AMBOINA the yachts "Pera" and "Arnhem" for the purpose of cultivating friendly relations with the inhabitants of Queij, Aroe and Tenimber and of exploring the land of Nova Guinea. The above-named islanders, it is further stated, had of their own free will placed themselves under the rule and protection of the States of the United Netherlands and promised to come and trade with the fortresses of Banda and Amboina. For the remaining portion of the voyage, along the land of Nova GUINEA (which was described as a barren country, inhabited by absolutely barbarous, cruel savages), the Directors were referred to the enclosure itself.

The second document, the JOURNAL, was printed in full by L. C. D. Van Dijk, in 1859, in Mededlingen Oost-Indisch Archief: No. 1, Twee Togten naar de Golf van Carpentaria. The portions relating to Australia were subsequently printed by Professor Heeres (Leiden, E. J. Brill , London, Luzac and Co.) in his work The Part of the Dutch in the Discovery of Australia, 1606-1765, issued by the Royal Dutch Geographical Society on its twenty-fifth anniversary, in 1899, together with an English translation by Mr. C. Stoflel. The Journal itself is bald and businesslike, makes no pretensions to literary form, and is even careless as to grammatical

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accuracy. Stoffel's translation, on the other hand, is a dainty piece of work. It is as if he had rewritten a plain tale with the object of suiting it for acceptance by a high-class magazine. He has, indeed, while taking no serious liberties with the facts, presented the tale in the garb of early seventeenth-century English, the trick of which he has caught admirably. The only fault to be found with the translation is that it is better than the original. In the following pages, I have ventured, while freely acknowledging my indebtedness to the Dutch translator, to present an almost literally translated English version which, in my opinion, more nearly reflects the rough-hewn story of the author.

The Report is in the form of a DIARY kept on board the "Pera," and is probably in the main a transcription of the ship's log, and is signed by JAN CARSTENSZOON, the COMMODORE of the Expedition. It is headed "Journal kept by Jan Carstensz," that being the contraction in common use at a time when surnames denoted only that the person known by a certain Christian name was the son (zoon) of somebody else.

Although the "Pera" and "Aernem" took over the orders originally drawn up for the "Haringh" and "Hasewint," the SKIPPER of the "Pera," JAN SLUIJS, was not in the position which was to have been occupied by Jan Vos, who, presumably, was the skipper of one of the two vessels. Vos, it was intended, should carry the flag, convene the Council and preside therein." In short, he was not only to command his own ship but to be commodore of the expedition as well. The SKIPPERS of the "Pera" (Sums) and "Aernem" (MELISZOON) had no higher status than that of SAILING MASTERS, and although most of the hard work was assigned to them, they were evidently of less importance than the merchants or traders (kooplieden), as witness the order of precedence observed in the Aru and Queij inscriptions.

A democratic institution, viz., a "FULL COUNCIL" of the assembled officers of both ships,[1] seems to a modern lay reader to have been well calculated to destroy all order and discipline, and yet there is no evidence that on these two ships any serious trouble resulted.

From a reference in the log to a resolution of the Council on a certain date, which resolution is not mentioned in the log of that date, there is reason to suppose that the proceedings of the Council were recorded in a separate minute book, which has been lost, or lost sight of.

It would be interesting to know the names of all the adventurers who set out in 1623 and who lighted upon the Cape York Peninsula, but no list is given in the log, only a few names being mentioned incidentally, while a few more can be gathered from other documents.

[1) The composition of the Full Council is explained in Tasman's instructions.]

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JAN CARSTENSZOON, "Opper Coopman" (Upper merchant, or trader or SUPERCARGO) on the "Perez," acted as COMMODORE of the expedition. The ASSISTANT SUPERCARGO Of the "Pera" was PIETER LINGTES Or LINTIENS. The SKIPPER was JAN SLUIJS. The UPPER STEERSMAN (Chief Mate)was AREND MARTENSZOON DE LEEUW, and the UNDER STEERSMAN (Second Mate) was WILLEM JOOSTEN VAN COOLSTEERDT, who was made skipper of the "Aernem" on the death of Meliszoon, the original master (loth February, 1623). The number of the crew is nowhere stated, but at any rate it was large enough to furnish a boat's crew of thirteen men on occasion. A CARPENTER and an "ASSISTANT" are referred to, but it is not clear whether the latter was the carpenter's apprentice or a midshipman. A CORPORAL and TEN MUSKETEERS are mentioned, but it is doubtful whether these were marines or sailors armed for the occasion. There was also a BARBER-SURGEON, and a "JUREBASS," who was an expert swimmer and who died of liver complaint or of the operation performed by the barber. Stoffel is unable to give an English equivalent for "jurebass" and no more can I, nor can any Dutchman whom I have had an opportunity of consulting. We must, therefore, for the present be content to define a Jurebass as "a person who performs jurebassial functions." My conjecture wavers between a slave, prisoner, convict or hostage on the one hand and a lent or temporarily impressed local pilot on the other.

The "Aernem" set out on the voyage under command of DIRK MELISZOON, assisted by an unnamed FIRST MATE and a SECOND MATE named JAN JANSZOON. On loth February, 1623, Meliszoon was killed by natives of New Guinea, together with an "assistant." (midshipman?) named JAN WILLEMSZOON VAN DEN BRIEL and eight others. After this disaster, VAN COOLSTEERDT, second mate of the "Perez," was given command of the "Aernem," and JANSZOON, the "Aernem's" second mate, was made FIRST MATE.

It is beyond the scope of this study to follow the fortunes of the expedition except in so far as they are connected with the Cape York Peninsula, but it may be mentioned that the "Pera's" officers completed their voyage under the mistaken impression that they had demonstrated the CONTINUITY OF CERAM AND NEW GUINEA, although pre-existing maps showed this stretch of land to be divided into a chain of islands. When DE LEEUW--evidently some time after the voyage--drew his famous sketch-chart, he must have been satisfied of the error of this conclusion, as he showed the islands. The expedition abandoned the search for the alleged opening now known as TORRES STRAIT, believing that it DID NOT EXIST, and coasted Australia for eight degrees southward, having failed to realise that New Guinea was a distinct island. On the other hand, they furnished the earliest account of a portion of Australia and added materially to the knowledge of New Guinea.

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CHAPTER VI

THE VOYAGE OF THE "Pera" AND "AERNEM" (1623), continued

III. THE OUTWARD VOYAGE

ATTACK BY NEW GUINEA NATIVES. Bows AND ARROWS. A NATIVE KILLED. FALSE CAPE, FREDERICK HENRY ISLAND (SUPPOSED TO BE PART OF NEW GUINEA). EASTWARD ALONG SOUTH COAST OF NEW GUINEA. ENTANGLED IN THE "DRY BIGHT." SATISFIED THAT THERE IS NO STRAIT BETWEEN NEW GUINEA AND THE SOUTH LAND. POOR SAILING QUALITIES OF THE "AERNEM." A MEETING OF THE COUNCIL. SHIPS VISITED BY NEW GUINEA NATIVES, FOR WHOM "TRADE" HAD NO ATTRACTIONS, BUT WHO WOULD GIVE SOMETHING FOR A BOY. TOO WARY TO BE CAUGHT. INEFFECTUAL ATTEMPT TO LAND ON NEW GUINEA COAST. ESCAPE FROM THE "DRY BIGHT" INTO DEEP WATER. AUSTRALIA (CAPE YORK PENINSULA) SIGHTED AND LOST SIGHT OF. SIGHTED AGAIN NEAR CAPE KEERWEER. A DIFFICULT LANDING. ATTEMPT TO ATTRACT NATIVES. ANOTHER LANDING NEAR MOUTH OF MITCHELL RIVER. NO NATIVES. ANOTHER LANDING. THE NATIVES AND THEIR WEAPONS. A NATIVE CAPTURED. DEATH OF THE "JUREBASS" UNDER AN OPERATION BY THE BARBER-SURGEON. A LANDING FOR FIREWOOD. AN ATTACK BY NATIVES REPULSED. LATITUDE OF 17° 8' S. REACHED. MEETING OF COUNCIL. RETURN DECIDED ON. REWARD OFFERED FOR CAPTURE OF NATIVES A LANDING FOR WATER. ANOTHER LANDING. NATIVE FOOTPRINTS. MEMORIAL TABLET ERECTED. STATEN INLET NAMED (ACCIDENT INLET, ONE OF THE MOUTHS OF THE GILBERT RIVER). FLINDERS MISTAKES POSITION OF STATEN INLET.

[BRITISH ADMIRALTY CHART NO. 447, "WESTERN APPROACHES TO TORRES STRAITS," CORRECTED UP TO AUGUST, 1900.]

On 11th March, 1623, the "Pera" and "Aernem" anchored off a promontory, which they named VALSCH CAEP (False Cape), the western extremity of what is now distinguished as FREDERICK HENRY ISLAND, and is separated from the mainland of New Guinea by the narrow Princess Marianne or Dourga Channel. From this point, the "Pera's" log, dealing with an attempt to find an eastward passage through the suspected TORRES STRAIT, the "DRY BIGHT" which was supposed to be "all there was" to it, and the cruises along the western coast of the CAPE YORK PENINSULA, is reproduced almost verbatim.

"In the morning of the 12th [March, 1623], the breeze from the NW. In the forenoon, I, personally, rowed to the land, with the two boats well manned and armed, in order to see if there was anything worthy of note there; but when we had got within a musket shot from the land, the water became so shallow that we could not reach it, whereupon we all of us went through the clay up to our waists and with great difficulty reached the beach, where we saw a number of fresh human footprints. On going a short distance into the bush, we saw 20 or more huts made of dried grass,

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the huts being so small and cramped that a man could hardly creep into them, from which we could sufficiently conclude that the natives must be poor and miserable specimens of humanity. We afterwards tried to penetrate somewhat further into the bush, in order to ascertain the nature and situation of the country. As we were returning, a number of BLACKS sprang out of the bush and let fly their ARROWS at us very furiously and with a horrible shouting, wounding a carpenter in the belly and an apprentice in the leg. They also made signals to other blacks to come to their assistance. Being thus hard pressed, we fired three or four muskets at the blacks, killing one stone dead, which utterly took away their courage, and they dragged the dead man into the bush. Being so far from the boats and a very difficult path to travel, we returned, rowed out and went on board. The same day, at low water, we saw a great shoal, extending SE., S. and SW. from us, where we had been with the yachts on the 11th. The said shoal stretches fully 4 miles [i6 minutes] WSW. and W. by S. of the land or hook, to which has been given in the new chart the name of VALSCH CAEP, and which is in lat. 8° 15' S. [really 8° 21' and about 70 miles [280 minutes] east [really SE.] of Aru.

"NOTE that the land which we have touched at, as above mentioned, is low-lying and half-submerged to the north, so that a large part of it is under water at high tide. In the south it is somewhat higher, and here some men inhabit it, and possess huts, but so far as we could ascertain it is barren, although closely covered with tall, wild trees. The men are quite black and naked. Their hair curls, like that of the Papuans. They wear certain fish-bones through the nose, and through the ears pieces of the bark of trees, a span in length, so that they look more like monsters than human beings. Their weapons are ARROWS AND BOWS, with which they are very expert.

"On the 13th, the wind N.: good weather and the current stronger to west than to north. We got under sail in the forenoon, course WNW. to get into deeper water, and when we had run a short distance we got about 8 feet, upon which we turned back, and towards evening anchored in 2 fathoms.

"On the 14th, good weather, the wind N. by W., and the current, as before, strong to the SW. At midday, both boats sent out to take soundings, and they went fully a miles WNW. of the yachts without finding anywhere more than 1½ or 2 fathoms of water. The same day, it was found practicable to set up again the 'Aernem's' main topmast (which had been lowered because it was useless in the calm weather), for which the weather was now every day becoming more suitable.

"On the 15th, wind NNE., good weather, and the current as strong as before. At midday, got under sail, on a tide coming from the NW., in the hope of getting clear of the shoals, but after beating about till towards evening, we were forced by contrary currents to anchor in 3 fathoms.

"The 16th, good weather, the wind NE. by E. Got under sail before midday. In the course of the day the wind dropped. Towards evening the wind veered round to WSW. Course NNW. along the shallows, in 2½ and 2 fathoms. In the evening, anchored in 3 fathoms. We have found that in these parts the currents set very strongly to SW., as before mentioned, and that the water rises and falls fully 1½ and 2 fathoms at each tide.

"The 17th, the wind E. in the morning. Thereupon we set sail, course WNW. and W. by N., getting into deeper water, about 5 fathoms. At noon the latitude was 8° 4'. In the evening we anchored in 6 fathoms, having sailed WSW. 4 miles [16 minutes].[1]

"In the morning of the 18th, good weather, the wind W. In the afternoon we set sail, with a rising tide coming from the W. Course SW. by S., in 6 fathoms. When we had got into water deeper than 7 and 8 fathoms, course changed to SE. by E., and ESE., in 10, 12, 14, 18, 20, 26 and 28 fathoms. Towards evening, we went over to E., having sailed from morning to evening on the course first mentioned 5½ miles [22 minutes] and from evening to morning E., 9 miles [36 minutes].

[1) Carstenszoon's "miles" are Dutch "Leagues," of four minutes (16 to a degree).]

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"On the 9th, course E. and wind W., having VALSCH CAEP NNE., 5 miles [20 minutes] off, the land extending N. by W. The water being now 24 fathoms deep here, went over to ENE., making 4 miles [16 minutes], got 6 fathoms, so we cast anchor about 4 miles from the land.

"On the 20th, wind NNE., good weather, course as before, in 6 fathoms. In the evening we anchored in 5½ fathoms, having this day sailed 7½ miles [30 minutes].

"On the morning of the 21st, we again set sail, the wind NNW. and the course NE., for 4 miles [16 minutes], in 4 fathoms. In the afternoon we made 8 miles E. In the evening anchored in 7 fathoms, just beyond an island lying a mile or more south of the mainland.[1] A quarter of a mile N. by E., and S. by W. of the islet is a rock, on which two leafless trees are standing.

"On the 22nd, the Council having been convened, it was finally resolved to land with the two boats properly manned and armed, seeing that the coast here is covered with coco-nut trees, and is also higher, better looking and more fruitful than any country which we have seen hitherto: afterwards when we failed to get ashore because of mud-flats, we rowed to the before-mentioned islet, and let go the anchor in order to visit it. While we were so engaged, the yacht 'Aernem' got adrift, owing to the force of the current and the wind, and ran foul of the bows of the ' Pera,' much damage being done to both ships...This prevented any further sailing for some days, and indeed had God not specially looked after them, both yachts would have gone ashore..

"On the 23rd, good weather, and the Council having been convened once more, I proposed to try every possible means to get the 'Aernem' into sailing trim again and in the first place another rudder so as not to delay the voyage, but there was absolutely no means of doing this because in neither of the yachts were there any spare rudders or old ones which could be cut down. Prevented thus from making a proper job of it, it was finally resolved (to expedite the voyage and not have the yacht lagging behind) that with the materials available a rudder should be constructed Javanese or Chinese fashion. For this purpose the Pera will have to give up her main topmast, the rest of the required wood to be fetched from the land, and we shall stay here until the rudder has been made.

"On the 24th (while the rudder was being made) the subcargo,[2] with both the boats, went to the aforesaid island to get water for the Aernem (which was very short of it) and came on board in the evening with four firkins full, after great trouble.

"On the 25th, the yacht Aernem again seaworthy (Praise God!) with good weather and a favourable wind got under sail once more, course E., in 5½, 6 and 6½ fathoms along the land. In the evening, in 2½ fathoms and 2 miles off the land, we cast anchor, having sailed ten miles [40 minutes] this day.

"NOTE that the island hereinbefore mentioned lies in 8° 8' S. lat. [8° 16' according to modern charts.--R.L.J.] about a mile N. and S. [i.e., S.] of the mainland, as aforesaid, is pretty high and is well timbered with wild trees on the east side and quite bare on the west. It is about a quarter of a mile in circumference and is surrounded by many boulders and rocks (on which plenty of oysters grow). The soil is very good and suitable for all sorts of plants and cereals. It carries, by our estimate, upwards of too full-grown coco-nut trees, with many young ones coming on, and also some bananas and oubis, with fresh water, which comes trickling through the clay in small rills and may be caught in pits dug for the purpose. There are also a great many bats (vleermuijsjen) which live in the trees, for which reason in the new chart we have given the island the name of VLEERMUIJS EIJLANDT. We have seen no huts or human beings on it, but found unmistakable signs that men had been there before. [The island appears on modern charts as Habeeke Island.--R. L. J.]

[1) The wording ("near an island lying a mile or more south and north of the mainland") is ambiguous, but the island, which was afterwards named Vleermuijs Eijlandt (Bat I.) must have been south of the land. The island and rock are easily identified on modem charts as Habeeke Island and Sametinke Rock.--R. J.]

[2) Ondercoopman, Under Trader, Sub-Cargo, or Assistant Supercargo.]

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[1) At the head of this paragraph the words "Clapper Cust" (Coco-nut Coast) occur as a marginal note.--R.L.J.]

[2) A sly allusion to the terms of the sailing orders.--R.L.J.]

[3) This day the modern boundary line between Dutch and British New Guinea waters was passed.--R.L.J.]

[4) According to modern charts, the northmost navigable waters here (in Heath Bay) are about 9° 13' S.]

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Aernem to take soundings in various directions for 2 or 3 miles out from the yachts. At low water we saw several sandbanks and reefs lying dry, to wit: ESE., SSW. and W. In the afternoon the Aernem's boat came back, having found shoals in every direction for two miles out. Towards evening the Pera's boat also returned, and from the Steersman we learned that they had been about 8 miles E. by S. and ESE. of the yachts, and at that distance had found very shallow water, such as 7, 8, 9 and 10 feet, which continued for more than a mile, the depth thereafter increasing to 2, 2½, 3, 5 and 7 fathoms; that the land stretched E. and E. by N., being very low and muddy and overgrown with a tangle of brushwood and wild trees.

"On the 31st, the wind NNE., with rain. After midday I went personally, with both boats, to one of the reefs, to see how things were between the yachts and the land, which area had fallen dry with the low tide. In the afternoon the skipper of the Pera was commanded to take the boat, properly manned and armed, to the land, in order to ascertain what could be done for the service of our masters, and to parley with the people, and, if practicable, get hold of one or two. Very late in the evening, the boat returned, and we were informed by the skipper that, although it was high water, they could not come nearer than a pistol-shot to the land, owing to the mud and shoals, and that the low and submersible land was full of brushwood and wild trees.

"NoTE.--Having heard the above-written reports regarding the shoals to the east, we are sufficiently assured (to our great regret) that it is not possible any longer to trace the land which we have followed so far to the east. Having sailed into the shoal as into a trap, we must get out the same way, trying one direction and another and taking advantage of the ebb; and having attained deeper water, first run south to the 16th degree, or even further, should it be found advisable, and then turn the bow northward along the coast of New Guinea, according to our previous resolution come to on 6th March.[1] We were now, as before mentioned, in lat. 9° 6' S. [say 9° 13'.--R.L.J.] and about 125 miles east of Aru, and, according to the chart furnished to us,[2] and the estimates of the skippers and steersmen, not more than 5 miles from New Guinea, so that the space between us and the aforesaid New Guinea appears to be a bight, which, because of its shoals, we have named the DROOGE BOCHT [Dry Bight] in the new chart.[3] To the land which we have followed up to date, we have, by resolution, given the name of the WESTEINDE VAN NOVA GUINEA (West End of New Guinea), seeing that we have in reality found the land to be an UNBROKEN WHOLE, although marked as islands, such as Ceram and the Papues, in the charts, owing to misunderstanding and misleading information.[4]

"April 1st, the wind W. by S., good weather. Weighed anchor, and with the ebb coming out of the NE., drifted with the stream 1 miles SW., and anchored in 6 fathoms.

"On the 2nd, wind W. by N. Tried to get away to the W., on the ebb, in 4, 5 and 6 fathoms. During the whole day variable winds. Towards evening, anchored in 4 fathoms, 3 miles from the land, and this day advanced W. and W. by N. 4 miles.

"On the 3rd, sailed again at daybreak, the wind N., course WNW., in 7, 2 and 1½ fathoms, the water in these parts being of greatly varying depths, so that the lead

[1) The fact that this resolution is not mentioned in the diary of 6th March leads to a presumption that the minutes of meetings of the Full Council were kept in a separate book; this would be an interesting document.--R.L.J.]

[2) They must have been furnished with the "Duyfken's" charts.--R.L.J.]

[3) A marginal addendum to this note (presumably made by the writer of the Diary itself) reads: "The Drooge Bocht, where we had to leave the west end of New Guinea, is in 9° 20' S. lat."]

[4) The charts available in 1623 already showed the insularity of Ceram, and clusters of islands extending eastward and almost bridging over the space separating Ceram from New Guinea. An observer sailing eastward to the south of these islands (especially if insufficiently acquainted with charts of the region) might be pardoned for regarding the land as unbroken from Ceram to New Guinea. The information in possession of the Spanish and Portuguese of the period was by no means "misleading."--R.L.J.]

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had to be used all the time. In the afternoon, anchored in 4 fathoms, having drifted with the ebb 2½ miles.

"On the 4th, the wind NE. by N., good weather. Set sail again. In the afternoon, anchored in 7 fathoms, out of sight of land, having drifted with the current 8 miles W. by N.

"NOTE.--Here, after immense difficulty and peril, we had again (God be thanked!) got clear of the aforesaid shoals, between which and the land we had sailed as into a trap. The shoals extend S. and N., from 4 to 9 miles out from the mainland, and are 10 miles from E. to W.

"On the 5th, we sailed again at daylight, the wind ENE., on courses varying between SW. and S., whereby we got into deeper water, from 14 to 26 fathoms, and sailed a miles [72 minutes] this day [" het etmael," a day of 24 hours: hence, probably, from daylight of the 5th to daylight of the 6th.--R.L.J.].

"On the 6th, the wind SW., with rain, course SE. At night, latitude 9° 45', and sailed in the day ESE. II miles. [How was the night latitude determined?--R.L.J.]

"On the 7th, the wind SE., course E., in 15 or 16 fathoms water, and till evening sailed 4 miles. At night turned SE., and towards daylight [of the 8th.--R.L.J.] anchored in 4 fathoms, but as the yacht swung to the anchor came on z fathoms, and during the night sailed 3 miles.

"In the morning of the 8th, saw distinctly many stones lying on the bottom, but to have such a change in the water (as from z6 fathoms) showed that the land here (though unseen) must he very dangerous to touch at, and it was only through God's providence that the yachts were not wrecked. Got under sail at noon, being in 10° 15', the wind W. by S., and later on variable, till next morning [9th], sailed 6 miles SSW., in 10 and 11 fathoms."

[EDITORIAL NOTE.--The Admiralty chart shows, in lat. 10° 15' S. and 141° E., a reef or shoal reported by the "Glamis Castle" in 1881, and it was probably here that the "Pera's" captain was alarmed by the sudden shoaling of the water in a cable's length.--R.L.J.]

"On the 9th, the wind NE., with rain, course SE. In the evening wind SE. Therefore anchored in 11 fathoms, and this day sailed 5 miles.

"In the morning of the l0th, the wind ENE., course SE., in 9, 10 and 11 fathoms. In the evening wind SE., whereupon anchored, having sailed 5 miles.

"On the 11th, the wind E. by N., a fair breeze, course SSE., lat. at noon