Page:Early voyages to Terra Australis.djvu/72

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xlviii
INTRODUCTION.

pointed to a mountain to the westward in which they said there was gold. The Portuguese remained in the island four months, until the monsoon enabled them to return to Ternate.

Now, had Sequeira been driven by the storm towards Endeavour Strait, as presumed by M. Barbié du Bocage, a glance at the map will show us that his course would have been south-east instead of east, and that not through an open sea in which no island could be seen, but one bestudded with islands. In fact, so definite is the whole account as given in detail by Barros, that, as we have shown, his course under the driving of the tempest may be palpably traced in accordance therewith on modern maps as due east to the north of the Moluccas, and through an open sea, and is clearly at variance with the inference of M. Barbié du Bocage, who seems not to have consulted Barros at all upon the subject. To what island, the reader will ask, was Sequeira driven? Let the modern map be consulted, and the course described will bring us to the island Tobi, otherwise known as Lord North's Island. A course so clearly defined is in itself a very strong point in the question, even though we may have to show some discrepancies between the description of the island on which Sequeira was thrown and that which we have in recent times received of Lord North's Island. Let the reader, however, in connexion with Barros' description of the course, take the following remarkable statement, as quoted in the 6th volume of the Ethnography and Philology of the United States Exploring Expedition, by H. Hale, in