d plantations of yams, sugar-cane, and plantains were seen, but
they could purchase very little as their articles of trade were not
appreciated. The natives did not understand the use of iron, and did not
require cloth as they went almost entirely naked. Though no direct signs
of cannibalism had been found, Cook was convinced that the practice was
not unknown.

After leaving Tanna, the western coasts of the different islands were
followed up till De Bougainville's Passage was reached, when the course
was set for Espiritu Santo. In passing Malicolo canoes put off for the
ship, but the wind being favourable, Cook would not delay, and gave
Forster the opportunity to remark that the main object of the voyage,
i.e. the obtaining a knowledge of the natural history of the islands, was
made subservient to the production of a new track on the chart of the
Southern Hemisphere.

CARDINAL MORAN'S GEOGRAPHY.

On 25th August they entered the bay which Cook believed to be that
discovered by De Quiros, and named by him the Bay of St. Philip and St.
Iago in the Tierra Austral del Espiritu Santo, now known as the New
Hebrides. In this conclusion Cook has the support of Dalrymple and modern
geographers, but Forster, for some reason which is not quite clear, felt
compelled to differ. Cardinal Moran, the Catholic Archbishop of Sydney,
also believes Cook to have been mistaken, for in his History of the
Catholic Church in Australia, he places De Quiros's discovery in Port
Curtis, Queensland, where he claims that the first Catholic service ever
celebrated in Australia was held. He puts aside the fact that the
latitude of Port Curtis, 24 degrees South, does not agree with that given
by De Quiros, 15 degrees 20 minutes South, by saying that the positions
of newly discovered places were, in those days, "often purposely
concealed lest other navigators might appropriate to themselves and their
respective countries, the results of the discovery." He quotes details
given in De Quiros's petitions to the King of Spain, and says: "All these
details fit in admirably with Port Curtis on the Queensland coast." Now
De Quiros says the country he discovered was thickly inhabited by a
people who were armed with bows and arrows, possessed vessels of
earthenware, lived in houses of wood, roofed with palm leaves, were amply
supplied with oranges, limes, pears, almonds larger than those of Spain,
hogs, fowls, goats, capons, etc. That in the bay where he anchored