196 THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



Bay of San Lorenzo ; the modern Bay of 1'Orangerie. 

 It is "very beautiful and pleasant," says the map maker, 

 "the best land and the most fertile that has yet been 

 discovered " ; and he drew a map of something that looks 

 like a Spanish town laid out in streets. On the 1 8th 

 of October they were in a Bay in 3, 40', one thousand 

 four hundred and eighty miles from their first landfall, 

 which they called the Bay of San Pedro de Arlanca. It 

 is the modern Triton Bay. 



Torres silent These facts are clear and exact. The trouble is to 

 Australia understand exactly how Torres got from the second of 

 these places to the third, and exactly what were his re- 

 flections as he made the first recorded passage of this 

 most dangerous Strait. It is difficult for the student to 

 blame too severely the baldness and the apparent confusion 

 of the narrative. Here at last is a man who definitely 

 saw the Southern Continent. He had sailed in search 

 of it under a captain whose soul blazed with passionate 

 desire of its glories. Quiros, the Moses of this great enter- 

 prise, had seemed to get vision of the continent, and then, 

 " for lack of half an hour," had sailed home with " sorrow- 

 ful discourses." And now here was Torres, the Joshua 

 of our story, actually in touch with the Promised Land 

 and he has not a word to say about it ! His thought 

 runs always Northward. By adding his figures we gather 

 that he has sailed along a coast on this side extending 

 two thousand, four hundred and forty miles. He has 

 nothing of interest to say even about this huge country 

 save that at the Western end are " Mahomedan Moors," 

 who " said that in all the land there was much gold, and 

 other good things, such as pepper and nutmegs." About 

 things seen on the South he says no word that even 

 Quiros could use as argument for further enterprise. He 

 writes as one who neither expected a continent, nor saw 

 one. 



The only passage that can possibly refer to Australia 

 is a very confused string of sentences which seem to tell 

 that in 9 Torres was obliged by " many shoals and great 

 currents" to "sail out South-West in that depth to 11 



