THE SPANISH STORY ENDS 199 



as it appeared to his mind. l Of the Memorials, eight remain. 

 Two of them were translated into English, French, German, 

 Dutch, and Latin, and were the chief source of information 

 during this period about the exploits and the hopes of 

 Quiros. In them, with abundant detail and endless 

 repetition, he insists on the various branches of the great 

 argument. He had discovered either a continent, or 

 islands that were very near a continent " never have 

 there been found inhabited islands that are not very near 

 a continent." This continent would be " another New 

 World," like America, just as great and with prospects 

 of becoming greater. He himself had seen silver and 

 pearls 2 statements that one cannot explain ! And further 

 facts had been learned from Pedro, the captured native 

 of Taumaco. Before he died, a saved and happy Chris- 

 tian, " led to the gift of God's holy Glory," he had made 

 marvellous statements concerning great lands to the South 

 of his islands ; lands where were large towns, " in- 

 habited by people as white as ours," a country of very 

 high mountains and large rivers, abounding in spices 

 and silver and gigantic pearls produced by oysters so 

 huge that, if the hand is put inside the shell, and the shell 

 shuts, there is no hand, and the oyster must be captured 

 by means of a stick with a noose of rope at the end. These 

 are strong reasons for believing that " in that hidden 

 quarter of the globe are very large provinces, all full of 

 many and of various peoples." The proof is completed 

 by the letters of Torres, which, says Quiros, " gave me 

 great pleasure, and incited me to send in more Memorials." 

 The voyage of Torres, he curiously argues, " establishes 

 the greatness of the land newly discovered " ; curiously, 

 because all that Torres had discovered was that New 

 Guinea had a South coast, and that there was a way to 

 it through a very difficult strait. The length of this 

 New World, Quiros now declares, "is as much as all 

 Europe and Asia Minor, as far as the Caspian and Persia, 



1 See map, p. 189. 



2 He writes : " the silver that by good chance I saw in that land, 

 as well as samples of pearls." 



