Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/188

 40 RELATION OF

We went upon this bank for two months, at the end of which time we found ourselves in twenty-five fathoms, and in 5° S. latitude, and ten leagues from the coast. And having gone 480 leagues, here the coast goes to the N.E. I did not reach it, for the bank became very shallow. So we stood to the north, and in twenty-five fathoms to 4° lati- tude, where we fell in with a coast, which likewise lay in a direction east and west. We did not see the eastern ter- mination, but from what we understood of it, it joins the other we had left on account of the bank, the sea being very smooth. This land is peopled by blacks, different from all the others : they are better adorned : they use arrows, darts, and large shields, and some sticks of bamboo filled with lime, with which, by throwing it out, they blind their enemies. Finally, we stood to the W.N.AY. along the coast, always finding this people, for we landed in many places : also in it we took possession for Your Majesty. In this land also we found iron, china bells, and other things, by which we knew we were near the Malucas ; and so we ran along this coast above 130 leagues, where it comes to a termination fifty leagues before you reach the Malucas. There is an infinity of islands to the southward, and very large, which for the want of provisions we did not approach; for I doubt if in ten years could be examined the coasts of all the islands we descried. We observed the variation in all this land of New Guinea to the Molucas ; and in all of it the variation agrees with the meridian of the Ladrone Islands and of the Philippine Islands.

At the termination of this land we found Mahometans, who were cloathed, and had firearms and swords. They sold us fowls, goats, fruit and some pepper, and biscuit which they called sagoe, which will keep more than twenty years. The whole they sold us was but little ; for they wanted cloth, and we had not any ; for all the things that had been given us for traffic Avcrc carried away by the