d 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 deg. 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
was generally unknown, until 1770; when it was again discovered and
passed by our great circumnavigator Captain Cook.

Torres, it should appear, took the precaution to lodge a copy of his
letter in the archives of Manila; for, after that city was taken by the
British forces, in 1762, Mr. Dalrymple found out, and drew from oblivion,
this interesting document of early discovery; and, as a tribute due to
the enterprising Spanish navigator, he named the passage TORRES' STRAIT;
and the appellation now generally prevails.

ZEACHEN. 1618.

ZEACHEN is said to have discovered the land of Arnhem and the northern
Van Diemen's Land, in 1618; and he is supposed, from the first name, to
have been a native of Arnhem, in Holland; and that the second was given
in honour of the governor-general of the Indies.* But there are two
important objections to the truth of this vague account: first, no
mention is made of Zeachen in the recital of discoveries which preface
the instructions to Tasman; nor is there any, of the North Coast having
been visited by the Dutch, in that yea