bank of from 3 to 9 fathoms, which extends along the coast above 180
leagues. We went over it along the coast to 7½ S. latitude, and the end
of it is in 5°. We could not go further on for the many shoals and great
currents, so we were obliged to sail S. W. in that depth to 11°. S.
latitude. There is all over it an archipelago of islands without number,
by which we passed, and at the end of the 11th degree, the bank became
shoaler. Here were very large islands, and there appeared more to the
southward: they were inhabited by black people, very corpulent, and
naked: their arms were lances, arrows, and clubs of stone ill fashioned.
We could not get any of their arms. We caught in all this land 20 persons
of different nations, that with them we might be able to give a better
account to Your Majesty. They give much notice of other people, although
as yet they do not make themselves well understood.

"We were upon this bank two months, at the end of which time we found
ourselves in 25 fathoms, and in 5° S. latitude, and 10 leagues from the
coast. And having gone 480 leagues, here the coast goes to the N. E. I
did not reach it, for the bank became very shallow. So we stood to the
north." *

[* See the letter of Torres, dated Manila, July 12, 1607, in Vol. II.
Appendix, No I. to Burney's "_History of Discoveries in the South Sea_;"
from which interesting work this sketch of Torres' voyage is extracted.]

It cannot be doubted, that the "very large islands" seen by Torres, at
the 11th degree of south latitude, were the hills of Cape York; or that
his _two months_ of intricate navigation were employed in passing the
strait which divides Terra Australis and New Guinea. But the account of
this and other discoveries, which Torres himself addressed to the King of
Spain, was so kept from the world, that the existence of such a strait