222 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF NEW ZEALAND cuap. x 
the south-east ; from thence he conjectured that there was in 
that place a passage through the land, which conjecture we 
proved to be true, as he himself had certainly done, had 
not the wind changed as he thought in his favour, giving him 
an opportunity of returning the way he came in, which he 
preferred to standing into a bay with an on-shore wind, 
upon the strength of conjecture only. Again, when he came 
the length of Cape Maria Van Diemen he observed hollow 
waves to come from the north-east, from whence he concluded 
it to be the northernmost part of the land, which we really 
found it to be. Lastly, to his eternal credit be it spoken, 
although he had been four months absent from Batavia 
when he made this land, and had sailed both west and east, 
his longitude (allowing for an error in that of Batavia, as he 
has himself stated it) differs no more than * from ours, 
which is corrected by an innumerable number of observa- 
tions of the moon and’ sun, etc., as well as of a transit of 
Mercury over the sun, all calculated and observed by Mr. 
Green, a mathematician of well-known abilities, who was 
sent out in this ship by the Royal Society to observe the 
transit of Venus. Thus much for Tasman; it were too much 
to be wished, however, that we had a fuller account of his 
voyage than that published by Dirk Rembrantz, which seems 
to be no more than a short extract, and that other navigators 
would imitate him in mentioning the supposed latitudes and 
longitudes of the places from whence they take their de- 
partures ; which precaution, useful as it is, may almost be 
said to have been used by Tasman alone. 
The face of the country is in general mountainous, 
especially inland, where probably runs a chain of very high 
hills, parts of which we saw at several times. They were 
generally covered with snow, and certainly very high; some. 
of our officers, men of experience, did not scruple to say as 
1 Left blank in Banks’s Journal. The following note was appended by 
Banks at the end of the chapter :— 
Though Tasman’s longitude of Cape Maria Van Diemen comes near the 
truth, our seamen affirm, and seem to make it appear, that he erred no less 
than 4° 49’in running from the first land he made to Cape Maria Van Diemen ; 
if so, his exactness must be attributed more to chance than skill. 
