THE UNIVERSE. OCEANIC DISCOVERIES. 273 



gradually unveiling itself, and of which we have yet scarcely 

 reached the threshold ! 



The Sandwich Islands, New Guinea, and some parts 

 of New Holland, were all discovered in the first half of 

 the 16th century. ( 425 ) These discoveries prepared the way 

 for those of Cabrillo, Sebastian Yizcaino, Mendana,, ( 426 ) and 

 Quiros, whose " Sagittaria" is Tahiti, and his " Archipelago 

 del Espiritu Santo" the New Hebrides of Cook. Quiros was 

 accompanied by the bold navigator who afterwards gave his 

 name to Torres Straits. The Pacific no longer appeared as 

 it had done to Magellan, a desert waste; it was now 

 enlivened by islands, which indeed for want of exact astrono- 

 mical determinations of position, strayed to and fro on the 

 map like floating lands. The Pacific long continued the 

 exclusive theatre of the enterprizes of the Spaniards and 

 Portuguese. The important South Indian Malayan Archi- 

 pelago, obscurely described by Ptolemy, Cosmas, and Polo, 

 began to shew itself with more definite outlines after 

 Albuquerque had established himself in Malacca in 1511, 

 and after the voyage of Anthony Abreu. It is the especial 

 merit of the classical Portuguese historian Barros, a cotem- ' 

 porary of Magellan and of Camoens, to have apprehended 

 the peculiarities of the physical and ethnical character of the 

 Archipelago in so lively a manner, that he first proposed to 

 distinguish Australian Polynesia as a fifth part of the globe. 

 It was when the Dutch power acquired the ascendancy in 

 the Molluccas, that tin's portion of the globe began to emerge 

 from obscurity, and to become known to geographers ; ( 427 ) 

 and then also began the great epoch of Abel Tasman. We do 

 not propose to ourselves to give the history of the several geo- 

 graphical discoveries, but merely to recal by a passing allusion 



