The features and place-names in the Spanish chart will reveal some of the most important of Torres' discoveries at the south-east end of New Guinea, where the Spanish navigator made his first stay in order to refresh the crews of the Almiranta and Brigantine.
From a description on this chart we learn that during five days and nights the Spaniards stood in sight of those tantalizing verdant shores, unable to effect a landing, threading their way through perilous reefs and over dangerous shoals.
Then, at last, they rounded, no doubt, the cape which Torres called Cabo de tres hermanas, or Cape of the Three Sisters, passed the next point marked (A) on the map, near the east point of the compass, and came to anchor in a little bay which was called Puerto de San Francisco.
It is situated near the south-east entrance to Rocky Pass, between Basilisk and Hayter Islands, and formed, in all probability, during their sojourn in these parts, the centre of their various excursions to the islands and bays around.
Its name, San Francisco, gives us the date of Torres' landing (14th of July, 1606), for it was customary in those days to name discoveries after the saints of the calendar; but the feast of St. Bonaventure occurs also on July the 14th, so that name was likewise made use of, and given to the whole territory discovered.
Contrary to Torres', Moresby's approach, in the year 1873, was from the N.E. where the mainland of New Guinea was supposed to extend beyond Hayter, Basilisk and Moresby's Islands.
The English captain had already cut off Moresby's Island, left his good ship Basilisk at anchor in the strait thus discovered (Fortescue Strait), and--the numerous reefs rendering navigation impossible for his ship--taken to his boats, the galley and cutter.
Moresby and party then rounded the northern shores of what they thought might prove to be the "beginning of New Guinea," when, suddenly, a bay seemed to open towards the south.
Moresby entered it, and, by the merest chance, hit upon the identical narrow passage which Torres, 267 years previously, had discovered from the south side and named Boca de la Batalla, Mouth of the Battle; having, no doubt, had an encounter there with the natives.
Moresby called that mouth Rocky Pass, and grew enthusiastic at the discovery, and at having "separated another island from New Guinea."