368 TORRES STRAIT. 



various streams. At 5, p. m. it was setting S. W. 

 about an hour, and continued to run in that direc- 

 tion until 8, 30m., gradually decreasing its rate. It 

 then took a N. and by E. direction with the same 

 velocity, until half an hour after midnight, when it 

 again changed back to S.S.W., a course it pur- 

 sued during the remainder of our stay. By the 

 rise of the water on the shore it w^ould appear that 

 the flood came from the westward. 



On reaching York Island we considered our- 

 selves within the Strait, which took its name from 

 the Spanish navigator Torres, who sailed in 1605, 

 second in command under Pedro Fernandes de 

 Quiros, from Callao in Peru, with the object of dis- 

 covering the Tierra Austral, then supposed to be a 

 continent occupying a considerable portion of the 

 southern hemisphere, lying westward of America. 

 Torres passed through this strait in 1606, but 

 despite the great importance of the discovery, its 

 existence remained unknown until I762, from the 

 jealousy of the Spanish monarchy, which kept the 

 reports of its navigators a secret from the world. 

 At the time in question, however, Manilla fell into 

 our hands, and in the archives of that colony, a 

 duplicate copy of Torres's letter to the king of 

 Spain was found by the hydrographer, Mr. Dal- 

 rymple. The passage was now made known, and 

 in tardy justice to the discoverer it received the ap- 

 pellation of Torres' Strait ; a tribute to the reputa- 

 tion of man, the greatest perhaps which could be 



