EARLY DISCOVERIES. 



ii 





lodged a copy in the public archives of the place. What became of the original is 

 uncertain, but the forgotten copy reposed unheeded beneath the accumulated dust of a 

 century and a half, when the British bombarded the city in 1792, brought to light the 

 ancient manuscript, 

 and honoured the 

 memory of the dough- 

 ty Spaniard by call- 

 ing the straits of his 

 discovery by his 

 name. This is the 

 only memorial left 

 us of his daring en- 

 terprise, for he was 

 hitherto in no way 

 identified with the 

 early exploration of 

 that Great South 

 Land which fired the 

 imagination and 

 baited the endeavour 

 of those romantic 

 old-time mariners. 



Of De Quiros it 

 remains only to be 

 told that after his 

 miserable return to 

 Mexico with the mu- 

 tineers, he again re- 

 paired to the Court 

 of Spain, where he 



spent two years of his fast-closing life in the old, weary work of memorialising and petition- 

 ing for but one single chance to finish his work. Nearly fifty memorials are said to have 

 been presented by the aged navigator ere he was once more commissioned to proceed 

 to America and start on another voyage. He reached Panama at last. His high hopes 

 were at the point of being really consummated, and a new world seemed again about 

 to be given to the haughty Don. But death cut abruptly short the gallant career 

 of the old Portuguese mariner, even as the wind of favouring fortune filled the sails of 

 his ships in the bay, and an unknown grave received the wasted body wherein had 

 dwelt the adventurous spirit of that noble sailor Don Pedro Fernandez De Ouiros, 

 whose name will ever be honoured as that of the man who, through all difficulties and 

 discouragements, never doubted the existence of a great Terra Australis, and who de- 

 voted the best energies of his life to its discovery. Thus was brought to a dramatic 

 close one of the most romantic chapters in the annals of Spanish maritime story; 

 perished the Columbus of the "New Atlantis" who, like his great prototype, was never 



WILLIAM DAMPIER. 



