PORTUGUESE NAVIGATORS. 47:1 



the favourable west wind, which carried him to the New World 

 across the wide bosom of the Pacific. The discovery of this 

 new ocean route was of considerable importance to the Spaniards, 

 and, to perpetuate the memory of Urdaneta's nautical ability, 

 they continued to call the passage by his name. 



About the same time another Spanish pilot, Juan Fernandez, 

 discovered the proper sea route from Callao to Chili, by first 

 sailing far out to sea, and thus avoiding the coast-currents from 

 the south. He also discovered the island which still bears his 

 name, and has become so celebrated by the adventures of Alex- 

 ander Selkirk, and the immortal tale of Daniel Defoe. 



In the year 1567 an expedition sailed from Callao under 

 Alvaro Mendana, which discovered the Solomon Islands ; and in 

 1595 the group of the Marquesas de Mendoza was first brought 

 to light by the same navigator. Before the last expedition of 

 Mendana, Drake, the first circumnavigator of the globe (1577 — 

 1580) after Magellan and El Cano, penetrated into the Pacific, 

 by rounding Cape Horn, and subsequently discovered the coasts 

 of New Albion as far as 48° N. lat. 



After having thus rapidly followed the course of the discoveries 

 which during the sixteenth century made Europe acquainted 

 with the whole western coast of America, from Cape Pillares in 

 Tierra del Fuego to the mouth of the Columbia Eiver, I return 

 to the Indian Ocean, where in the beginning of the century we 

 left the Portuguese in the full bloom of their power, and, to 

 judge by the progress already made, likely to add largely to the 

 stock of geographical knowledge. But whether the masters of 

 the Indian Ocean had no desire to extend still farther the circle 

 of their conquests, or the fiery spirit of enterprise which had 

 animated Vasco de G-ama and Diaz was prematurely extinguished, 

 the discoveries of the Portuguese in the Pacific by no means 

 corresponded to the gigantic flight which in less than a quarter 

 of a century had led them from Cape de Verde to the extremity 

 of the Malayan Archipelago. New Guinea was indeed discovered 

 by Don Jorge de Menezes (1526) and Alvaro de Saavedra 

 (1528), and some old maps prove that before 1542 a part of 

 the coast of New Holland was known to the Portuguese, who had 

 penetrated to the north as far as Formosa and Japan, yet at 

 the end of the sixteenth century the western boundaries of 

 the Pacific were only known from 40° N. lat. to 10° S. lat., and 



