Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/98

 lxxiv Quiros, for reasons which are not known, and without giving any signal or notice, was either driven by a storm, or sailed away from the harbour, and was separated from the other two ships.

Subsequently to the separation, Torres found that the Australia del Espiritu Santo was an island, and then continued his course westward in pursuance of the exploration. In about the month of August, 1606, he fell in with a coast in $11 1/2$ degrees south lat., which he calls the beginning of New Guinea; apparently the south-eastern part of the land afterwards named Louisiade by M. de Bougainville, and now known to be a chain of islands. As he could not pass to windward of this land, Torres bore away along its south side, and himself gives the following account of his subsequent course. "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 hence we fell in with a bank of from three to nine fathoms, which extends along the coast above one hundred and eighty leagues. We went over it, along the coast, to $7 1/2$ south latitude; and the end of it is in 5 degrees. We could not go further on for the many shoals and great currents, so we were obliged to sail south-west, in that depth, to 11 degrees south lat. 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 there appeared more to the southward. They were inhabited by black people, very corpulent and