It has often been said that Queiroz’s port of Vera Cruz is not to be found in the big bay of St. Philip and St. James, that the water is too shallow in the locality where the port was said to be.  This objection, however, may be overcome.

When amongst the islands of the group, a couple of years ago, a friend of mine, a French geologist of note, informed me that he had found numerous signs of upheaval in the corner of the bay, where, precisely, the port of Vera Cruz is marked on D. Diego de Prado’s chart.  This, coupled with what Queiroz says about “great trees torn up and brought down” by the rivers, accounts, no doubt, for what appears to be incorrect in the Spanish chart if compared with modern features.

CHAPTER XII.

TORRES’ DISCOVERIES.

I shall give here Torres’ account from that portion of it that has come to be intimately connected with Australian discovery.

As there was a misunderstanding, to say the least of it, between Queiroz, the Portuguese, and his lieutenant Torres, the proud Spaniard, the second in command during the voyage we have just read about, it will be just as well to hear both sides of the question, and thus be able to form a more correct opinion of what really happened on the occasion of the last of Spain’s great navigators’ memorable voyage towards the Great South Land.

Torres, in a letter to the king of Spain says: 

About sixty leagues before reaching Santa Cruz, we found a small island of 6 leagues, very high, and all around it very good soundings; and other small islands near it, under shelter of which the ships anchored.*

[* The island mentioned here was TAUMACO, which has been identified as one of the large islands of the Duff group, not far from Santa Cruz.]

I went with the two boats and fifty men to reconnoitre the people of this island; and at a distance of a musket shot from the island, we found a town surrounded with a wall, and only one entrance without a gate.

Being near with the two boats, with an intention of investing them, as they did not by signs choose peace, at length their chief came into the water up to his neck, with a staff in his hand, and without fear came directly to the boats; where he was very well received, and by signs which we very well understood, he told me that his people were in great terror of the muskets,* and, therefore, he entreated us not to land, and said that they would bring water and wood if we gave them vessels.  I told him that it was necessary to remain five days on shore to refresh.  Seeing he could not do more with me he quieted his people, who were very uneasy and turbulent, and so it happened that no hostility was committed on either side.

[* Some of them had, no doubt, a lively remembrance of the effect of Spanish fire arms, having been at Santa Cruz, eleven years before, when Mendana’s fleet anchored in Graciosa Bay.]