FOR THE SOUTH LAND 
45 
wished to turn south and explore the Staten Land east 
of New Holland, he was prevented from doing so by 
the representations of his ship's company, and proceed- 
ing into the tropical Pacific he discovered Samoa, and in 
iT S. the islands of Thienhoven and Groningen, which 
he hailed as promontories of the South Land. We may 
take leave of Roggeveen chanting the praises of that 
terrestrial paradise, the great Southern Continent, its vast- 
ness, richness, accessibility, delightful climate and the 
rest, in language worthy of Quiros himself, and no doubt 
largely derived from that poetical explorer. 
The old story of De Gonneville’s South Land and the 
perennially fresh descriptions of Quiros worked upon 
the mind of an able French naval officer, Lozier Bouvet 
or Bouvet des Loziers, and led him to appeal to the 
French East India Company to send out an expedition 
to discover and annex the Southern Continent. The 
Company after several years consented, desiring to es- 
tablish a port of call for their ships trading to India 
and China, and Gonneville’s South Land lying off the 
Cape of Good Hope with its fine climate and charming 
inhabitants would be very suitable indeed for this pur- 
pose. From Gonneville Land Bouvet proposed to take ad- 
vantage of the prevailing westerly winds to reach Quiros’s 
Australia del Espiritu Santo, where he hoped to open 
up a lucrative trade in slaves amongst other commodities, 
“ and it is only by a great trade that a great navy can 
be supported." He proposed to return by Cape Horn 
and thus to accomplish a complete voyage of circum- 
navigation in the southern hemisphere in about two years' 
time. 
The French East India Company gave two ships, the 
Aigle and the Marie, provisioned for eighteen months, 
