CHAPTER X 



AUSTRIALIA DEL ESPIRITU SANTO 



NEXT day (2nd of May) Torres was sent in the boat to Good 

 look for a landing-place. All day he looked, for the Bay anchora g e - 

 was very large and very deep. At length, at the extreme 

 end of the Bay, six or seven leagues from the entrance, 

 he found " good anchorage in from forty to twenty fathoms 

 of very clean sand, a port with a river, ballast and fuel, 

 and all that we could desire." This was joyful news ; 

 " for without a port the discovery would be of little im- 

 portance." Hither, in the course of three days so 

 long and so difficult was the bay they slowly worked 

 their way, and came to anchor. 



Of this port of St. Philip and St. James we get ample 

 information. Here the Spaniards stayed five weeks, 

 and wrote vivid narratives of their doings. One of them 

 drew a map of the Bay, which we still have. 1 Captain 

 Cook rediscovered the Bay in 1774, and wrote an account 

 of its geography that is of singular use to the student. 

 Moresby visited it in 1876, and made some interesting 

 remarks. " Doubtless," he wrote, " in time Australia 

 will throw off settlers to this glorious island, which is 

 capable of bearing all the spices of the East." 2 



To Quiros the situation grew better at every look. The 

 river, which he named the Jordan, appeared as big as the The river 

 Guadalquiver at Seville. He was sure that it must be J ordan - 

 two hundred and forty miles long at least, and that it 

 must drain a continent. Moresby describes it as " a fine 



1 See map, p. 170. 



2 Moresby's New Guinea and Polynesia. 

 169 



