wledge, for we have no
particular description thereof, as we have of the land under and about
the north pole."

Then Purchas, in 1578, says: "This land about the Straits is not
perfectly discovered, whether it be continent or islands. Some take it
for continent, and extend it more in their imagination than any man's
experience toward those islands of Saloman and New Guinea, esteeming (of
which there is great probability) that Terra Australis, or the Southern
Continent, may for the largeness thereof take a first place in order and
the first in greatness in the division and parting of the Whole World."

The most important of the Spanish voyages was that made by De Quiros, who
left Callao in December, 1605, in charge of an expedition of three ships.
One of these vessels was commanded by Luis Vaez de Torres. De Quiros, who
is believed to have been by birth a Portuguese, discovered several island
groups and many isolated islands, among the former being the New
Hebrides, which he, believing he had found the continent, named Tierra
Australis del Espiritu Santo. Soon after, the ships commanded by De
Quiros became separated from the other vessels, and Torres took charge.
He subsequently found that the land seen was an island group, and so
determined to sail westward in pursuance of the scheme of exploration. In
about the month of August he fell in with a chain of islands--now called
the Louisiade Archipelago and included in the British possession of New
Guinea--which he thought, reasonably enough, was the beginning of New
Guinea, but which really lies a little to the southeast of that great
island. As he could not weather the group, he bore away to the southward,
and his subsequent proceedings are here quoted from Burney's _Voyages_:

"We went along three hundred leagues of coast, as I have mentioned,
and diminished the latitude 2-1/2 degrees, which brought us into 9
degrees. From thence we fell in with a bank of from 3 to 9 fathoms,
which extends along the coast to 7-1/2 south latitude; and the end of
it is in 5 degrees. We could go no further on for the many shoals and
great currents, so we were obliged to sail south-west in that depth
to 11 degrees south latitude. There is all over it an archipelago of
islands, without number, by which we passed; and at the end of the
eleventh degree the bank became shoaler. Here were very large
islands, and they appeared more to the southward. They we