beyond. It was here that Hartog reckoned we
should find the place of the painted hands, if, indeed, such a locality
had any real existence.

The weather was now calm and fine, the wind fair, with a cloudless sky
overhead, so that barely an hour passed from the time we observed the
cliffs before we rounded them, when a sight appeared so unlooked for as
made us wonder if our eyes had played us false.

The coast along which we had sailed since first sighting the Great
South Land had been so barren and desolate as to make the novel and
attractive scene which now greeted us the more remarkable. Clustered
together in a pleasant valley, surrounded by green hills, and facing a
white sandy beach, were some two hundred houses, built of stone, and
roofed with what appeared to be clay, of such extraordinary whiteness
that it glistened, like snow, in the sun's rays. The herbs and grass
around the town were green and inviting, while tall, straight trees,
not torn by the wind, bore evidence of shelter from tempest which the
hills provided. To add to the beauty of the scene, flocks of parakeets
and bright-coloured parrots flew among the branches of the trees, while
sweet scents, from many kinds of flowers, were wafted to us from the
shore. On the beach we perceived a number of white people, dressed in
the fashion of some thirty years before. Many of them wore ruffs and
cloaks, which were now no longer the mode, and, to set our doubts at
rest as to their nationality, the Spanish ensign floated from a
flagstaff in front of the town. It was plain we had chanced upon a
Spanish colony, probably of some of the people of Mendana's fleet, who
had succeeded in forming a settlement in New Holland.

Anxious to make a favourable impression upon our first landing, Hartog
and I now donned our best, and the cutter, being manned, we were pulled
toward the beach, where we could see that a number of Spaniards had
assembled to receive us.

On landing we stepped forward as the leaders of our expedition, when we
were greeted with the most extravagant demonstrations of delight at our
arrival, and were presently conducted by some of those whom we took to
be in authority to one of the flat-roofed stone houses, somewhat larger
than the others, where Donna Isabel Barreto, the ruler of the
settlement, graciously welcomed us. From her we learnt the following
strange story.

The voyage of Mendana, as previously stated, had been undertaken with a
view to col