44 SIEGE OF THE SOUTH POLE 
Company, similar to one proposed by his father fifty years 
before, and accepted by the Company, but postponed in- 
definitely on account of the war then in progress. The 
political conditions being now happier the Company at 
once accepted the proposal, and the younger Roggeveen 
was granted three ships to explore the Southern Seas 
and to search for the Isle of Gold, a half mythical, half 
traditional island in the neighbourhood of New Guinea. 
The Dutch expedition set out in August, 1721, visited 
the Falkland Islands, naming them Belgia Australis, and 
tried to enter Strait Le Maire. Here the usual fate 
awaited them, a northerly storm sprang up and drove 
the squadron far to the south beyond 62° S., one of the 
ships, the Thienhoven, being reported to have reached 
64° 58' S. This position cannot be affirmed with any 
certainty, and like all the high latitudes previously at- 
tained, it was made much against the will of the ex- 
plorers, who never intended to seek that part of their 
great continent which lay amongst the Antarctic ice. 
The Dutch voyagers did not doubt that the southern con- 
tinent lay to the south of them; the abundance of ice, 
which was believed to form only near land, the birds, 
the direction of the currents in the sea were all taken 
as evidence of the proximity of land. The land they 
considered might very possibly be inhabited, for the 
shores of Davis Strait were inhabited all the year round 
at least as far as 70° N. 
Roggeveen proceeded to search in the Pacific for Davis 
Land, he sighted Easter Island, but not dreaming that 
so insignificant a speck could cast so vast a shadow on 
the map he continued sailing northwest, although his com- 
panion Behrens regretted that a southwesterly course 
had not been taken. When at a later date Roggeveen 
