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 explore the eastern base of the Andes in what is now Argentine Patagonia. In 1541 Francisco de Orellana discovered the whole course of the Amazon from its source in the Andes to the Atlantic. A second voyage on the Amazon was made in 1561 by the mad pirate Lope de Aguirre; but it was not until 1639 that a full account was written of the great river by Father Cristoval de Acuña, who ascended it from its mouth and reached the city of Quito.

The voyage of Drake across the Pacific was preceded by that of Alvaro de Mendaña, who was despatched from Peru in 1567 to discover the great Antarctic continent which was believed to extend far northward into the South sea, the search for which now became one of the leading motives of exploration. After a voyage of eighty days across the Pacific, Mendaña discovered the Solomon Islands; and the expedition returned in safety to Callao. The appearance of Drake on the Peruvian coast led to an expedition being fitted out at Callao, to go in chase of him, under the command of Pedro Sarmiento. He sailed from Callao in October 1579, and made a careful survey of the Strait of Magellan, with the object of fortifying that entrance to the South sea. The colony which he afterwards took out from Spain was a complete failure, and is only remembered now from the name of “Port Famine,” which Cavendish gave to the site at which he found the starving remnant of Sarmiento’s settlers. In June 1595 Mendaña sailed from the coast of Peru in command of a second expedition to colonize the Solomon Islands. After discovering the Marquesas, he reached the island of Santa Cruz of evil memory, where he and many of the settlers died. His young widow took command of the survivors and brought them safely to Manila. The viceroys of Peru still persevered in their attempts to plant a colony in the hypothetical southern continent. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, who was pilot under Mendaña and Luis Vaez de Torres, were sent in command of two ships to continue the work of exploration. They sailed from Callao in December 1605, and discovered several islands of the New Hebrides group. They anchored in a bay of a large island which Quiros named “Australia del Espiritu Santo.” From this place Quiros returned to America, but Torres continued the voyage, passed through the strait between Australia and New Guinea which bears his name, and explored and mapped the southern and eastern coasts of New Guinea.

The Portuguese, in the early part of the 17th century (1578–1640), were under the dominion of Spain, and their enterprise was to some extent damped; but their missionaries extended geographical knowledge in Africa. Father Francisco Paez acquired great influence in Abyssinia, and explored its highlands from 1600 to 1622. Fathers Mendez and Lobo traversed the deserts between the coast of the Red sea and the mountains, became acquainted with Lake Tsana, and discovered the sources of the Blue Nile in 1624–1633.

But the attention of the Portuguese was mainly devoted to vain attempts to maintain their monopoly of the trade of India against the powerful rivalry of the English and Dutch. The English enterprises were persevering, continuous and successful. James Lancaster made a voyage to the Indian Ocean from 1591 to 1594; and in 1599 the merchants and adventurers of London resolved to form a company, with the object of establishing a trade with the East Indies. On the 31st of December 1599 Queen Elizabeth granted the charter of incorporation to the East India Company, and Sir James Lancaster, one of the directors, was appointed general of their first fleet. He was accompanied by John Davis, the great Arctic navigator, as pilot-major. This voyage was eminently successful. The ships touched at Achin in Sumatra and at Java, returning with full ladings of pepper in 1603. The second voyage was commanded by Sir Henry Middleton; but it was in the third voyage, under Keelinge and Hawkins, that the mainland of India was first reached in 1607. Captain Hawkins landed at Surat and travelled overland to Agra, passing some time at the court of the Great Mogul. In the voyage of Sir Edward Michelborne in 1605, John Davis lost his life in a fight with a Japanese junk. The eighth voyage, led by Captain Saris, extended the operations of the company to Japan; and in 1613 the Japanese government granted privileges to the company; but the British retired in 1623, giving up their factory. The chief result of this early intercourse between Great Britain and Japan was the interesting series of letters written by William Adams from 1611 to 1617. From the tenth voyage of the East India Company, commanded by Captain Best, who left England in 1612, dates the establishment of permanent British factories on the coast of India. It was Captain Best who secured a regular firman for trade from the Great Mogul. From that time a fleet was despatched every year, and the company’s operations greatly increased geographical knowledge of India and the Eastern Archipelago. British visits to Eastern countries, at this time, were not confined to the voyages of the company. Journeys were also made by land, and, among others, the entertaining author of the Crudities, Thomas Coryate, of Odcombe in Somersetshire, wandered on foot from France to India, and died (1617) in the company’s factory at Surat. In 1561 Anthony Jenkinson arrived in Persia with a letter from Queen Elizabeth to the shah. He travelled through Russia to Bokhara, and returned by the Caspian and Volga. In 1579 Christopher Burroughs built a ship at Nizhniy Novgorod and traded across the Caspian to Baku; and in 1598 Sir Anthony and Robert Shirley arrived in Persia, and Robert was afterwards sent by the shah to Europe as his ambassador. He was followed by a Spanish mission under Garcia de Silva, who wrote an interesting account of his travels; and to Sir Dormer Cotton’s mission, in 1628, we are indebted for Sir Thomas Herbert’s charming narrative. In like manner Sir Thomas Roe’s mission to India resulted not only in a large collection of valuable reports and letters of his own, but also in the detailed account of his chaplain Terry. But the most learned and intelligent traveller in the East, during the 17th century, was the German, Engelbrecht Kaempfer, who accompanied an embassy to Persia, in 1684, and was afterwards a surgeon in the service of the Dutch East India Company. He was in the Persian Gulf, India and Java, and resided for more than two years in Japan, of which he wrote a history.

The Dutch nation, as soon as it was emancipated from Spanish tyranny, displayed an amount of enterprise, which, for a long time, was fully equal to that of the British. The Arctic voyages of Barents were quickly followed by the establishment of a Dutch East India Company; and the Dutch, ousting the Portuguese, not only established factories on the mainland of India and in Japan, but acquired a preponderating influence throughout the Malay Archipelago. In 1583 Jan Hugen van Linschoten made a voyage to India with a Portuguese fleet, and his full and graphic descriptions of India, Africa, China and the Malay Archipelago must have been of no small use to his countrymen in their distant voyages. The first of the Dutch Indian voyages was performed by ships which sailed in April 1595, and rounded the Cape of Good Hope. A second large Dutch fleet sailed in 1598; and, so eager was the republic to extend her commerce over the world that another fleet, consisting of five ships of Rotterdam, was sent in the same year by way of Magellan’s Strait, under Jacob Mahu as admiral, with William Adams as pilot. Mahu died on the passage out, and was succeeded by Simon de Cordes, who was killed on the coast of Chile. In September 1599 the fleet had entered the Pacific. The ships were then steered direct for Japan, and anchored off Bungo in April 1600. In the same year, 1598, a third expedition was despatched under Oliver van Noort, a native of Utrecht, but the voyage contributed nothing to geography. The Dutch Company in 1614 again resolved to send a fleet to the Moluccas by the westward route, and Joris Spilbergen was appointed to the command as admiral, with a commission from the States-General. He was furnished with four ships of Amsterdam, two of Rotterdam and one from Zeeland. On the 6th of May 1615 Spilbergen entered the Pacific Ocean, and touched at several places on the coast of Chile and Peru, defeating the Spanish fleet in a naval engagement off Chilca. After plundering Payta and making requisitions at Acapulco, the Dutch fleet crossed the Pacific and reached the Moluccas in March 1616.

The Dutch now resolved to discover a passage into the Pacific to the south of Tierra del Fuego, the insular nature of which had been ascertained by Sir Francis Drake. The vessels fitted out for this purpose were the “Eendracht,” of 360 tons, commanded by Jacob Lemaire, and the “Hoorn,” of 110 tons, under Willem Schouten. They sailed from the Texel on the 14th of June 1615, and by the 20th of January 1616 they were south of the entrance of Magellan’s Strait. Passing through the strait of Lemaire they came to the southern extremity of Tierra del Fuego, which was named Cape Horn, in honour of the town of Hoorn in West Friesland, of which Schouten was a native. They passed the cape on the 31st of January, encountering the usual westerly winds. The great merit of this discovery of a second passage into the South sea lies in the fact that it was not accidental or unforeseen, but was due to the sagacity of those who designed the voyage. On the 1st of March the Dutch fleet sighted the island of Juan Fernandez; and, having crossed the Pacific, the explorers sailed along the north coast of New Guinea and arrived at the Moluccas on the 17th of September 1616.

There were several early indications of the existence of the great Australian continent, and the Dutch endeavoured to obtain further knowledge concerning the country and its extent; but only its northern and western coasts had been visited before the time of Governor van Diemen. Dirk Hartog had been on the west coast in latitude 26° 30′ S. in 1616. Pelsert struck on a reef called “Houtman’s Abrolhos” on the 4th of June 1629. In 1697 the Dutch captain Vlamingh landed on the west coast of Australia, then called New Holland, in 31° 43′ S., and named the Swan river from the black swans he discovered there. In 1642 the governor and council of Batavia fitted out two ships to prosecute the discovery of the south land, then believed to be part of a vast Antarctic continent, and entrusted the command to Captain Abel Jansen Tasman. This voyage proved to be the most important to geography that had been undertaken since the first circumnavigation of the globe. Tasman sailed from Batavia in 1642, and on the 24th of November sighted high land in 42° 30′ S., which was named van Diemen’s Land, and after landing there proceeded to the discovery of the western coast of New Zealand; at first called Staten Land, and supposed to be connected with the Antarctic continent from which this voyage proved New Holland to be separated. He then reached Tongatabu, one of the Friendly Islands of Cook; and returned by the north coast of New Guinea to Batavia. In 1644 Tasman made a second voyage to effect a fuller discovery of New Guinea.