The account of this voyage of discovery is very vague, and the various writers on the subject do not entirely agree. This is due, perhaps, to the fact that Alvarado abandoned the enterprise from the start, and went to the conquest of Quito, in Peru, leaving the sole command to Grijalva.
Tidor Volcano, seen from Ternate.
It appears certain, however, that Grijalva visited many islands on the north coast of New Guinea, and one, in particular, called Isla de los Crespos, Island of the Frizzly Heads, at the entrance of Geelvinck Bay, near which a mutiny occurred, and Grijalva was murdered by his revolted crew.
His ship was wrecked, and the expedition came to an end, a few of the survivors reaching the Spice Islands in 1539.
Most of the names given during the course of the exploration are difficult to locate.
Besides the various place-names mentioned by Galvano, Ostrich Point, the Struis Hoek of later Dutch charts, is, perhaps, a reminiscence of this untimely voyage.
A casoar, or cassowary, would, of course, be called an ostrich, and here we have for the first time in history a picturesque description of that Australasian bird.
Galvano's translator says: "There is heere a bird as bigge as a crane, and bigger; he flieth not, nor hath any wings wherewith to flee; he runneth on the ground like a deere. Of their small feathers they do make haire for their idols."