78 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



the land for about a month, discovering about fifty leagues 

 beyond what had been seen by Meneses. He called the 

 land " Del Oro " one more Land of Gold ! But contrary 

 winds drove him back to the Moluccas. The Spaniards 

 in the Moluccas advised him to sail by way of the Cape of 

 Good Hope, for, sailing due East towards Mexico, he was 

 certain to meet contrary winds. But the obstinate hero 

 persisted, and sailed once more eastward in May 1529. 

 In December his ship returned to the Moluccas with news 

 that the voyage had again failed, and that Saavedra had 

 " died by the way." His men told that he " had sight of 

 a land towards the South in 2, and he ran East along by it 

 above five hundred leagues. The coast was clean and of 

 good anchorage, but the people black, and of curled hair. 

 . . . The people of Maluco call them Papuas, because they 

 be black and friseled in their hair, and so also do the Portu- 

 gals call them." Then, " having sailed 4 or 5 to the South 

 of the line, he returned unto it, and passed the equinoctial 

 towards the North." He came to islands the people of 

 which seemed to be " of China," and then made sail for 

 Panama. " For," explains Galvano, " from Maluco unto 

 Panama they sail continually between the Tropics and the 

 line ; but they never found wind to serve that course, and 

 therefore they came back again to Maluco very sad, because 

 Saavedra had died by the way." l 



The Spaniards were cast down, but not dismayed. The 

 New World of the Spice Islands grew more and more 

 attractive. "In no part of the discovered world," writes 

 Urdaneta, a famous Spanish seaman, " are there spices, 

 but only in these islands." The discovery of the land 

 of the " Papuas, all black with woolly hair like those of 

 Guinea," was promise of great things. " No doubt," 

 Urdaneta declared, " many other islands remain to be 

 discovered and subjugated." So Cortes sent forth ex- 

 pedition after expedition Westward from Mexico. Again 

 the land of the Papuas was visited, " a land of black people 

 with frizzled hair, who are cannibals, and the devil walks 

 with them." But the Portuguese held fiercely to their 

 1 Galvano, pp. 176-180. 



