complexion must arise from a mixed descent; and the different manner of wearing their hair is undoubtedly owing to their following the fashion of different nations, as their fancies lead them.  He farther observes that their vessels were larger and better contrived than their neighbours; that they readily parted with their bows and arrows in exchange for goods, and that they were particularly fond of glass and ironware, which, perhaps, they not only used themselves, but employed likewise in their commerce.  The most western point of the island he called the Cape of Good Hope, because by doubling that cape he expected to reach the island of Banda; and that we may not wonder that he was in doubts and difficulties as to the situation on of these places, we ought to reflect that Schovten was the first who sailed round the world by this course, and the last too, except Commodore Roggewein, other navigators choosing rather to run as high as California, and from thence to the Ladrone Islands, merely because it is the ordinary route.

In the neighbourhood of this island Schovten also met with an earthquake, which alarmed the ship’s company excessively, from an apprehension that they had struck upon a rock.  There are some other islands in the neighbourhood of this, well peopled, and well planted, abounding with excellent fruits, especially of the melon kind.  These islands lie, as it were, on the confines of the southern continent, and the East Indies, so that the inhabitants enjoy all the advantages resulting from their own happy climate, and from their traffic with their neighbours, especially with those of Ternate and Amboyna, who come thither yearly to purchase their commodities, and who are likewise visited at certain seasons by the people of these islands in their turn.

CHAPTER XIX:  ARRIVES SAFELY AT BATAVIA, JUNE 15, 1643.

On the 18th of May, in the latitude of 26 minutes south and in the longitude of 147 degrees 55 minutes, we observed the variation to be 5 degrees 30 minutes east.  We were now arrived at the western extremity of New Guinea, which is a detached point or promontory (though it is not marked so even in the latest maps); here we met with calms, variable and contrary winds, with much rain; from thence we steered for Ceram, leaving the Cape on the north, and arrived safely on that island; by this time Captain Tasman had fairly surrounded the continent he was instructed to discover, and had therefore nothing now farther in view than to return to Batavia, in order to report the discoveries he had made.