[40] Fifty-three Spaniards remained behind in Tidore with the Trinidad, but of these only five returned to Europe. These five included the captain, Gomez Espinosa, already mentioned, and a German gunner, Hans Warge. Many of the Spaniards died in Tidore from various diseases or were killed in quarrels with the natives. The Trinidad attempted to sail for Spain back across the Pacific Ocean, but pursued a northern route which took her to the forty-second degree of north latitude, whence she was driven back by storms to some island near New Guinea. Here she was found by the Portuguese, who stripped and abandoned her, conveying the survivors of her crew as prisoners to the Moluccas, where they were treated with considerable harshness.
[41] Called, by Pigafetta, Malina, probably the Island of Ombay.
[42] The Solomon Islands are now divided politically between Germany and Britain, Germany having annexed the large island of Bougainville and the smaller Buka on the north, and Great Britain the remainder. The islands are very mountainous and volcanic, and on the largest, Bougainville, one mountain rises to an altitude of over 10,000 feet. In the British Island of Guadalcanal there is an altitude of 8000 feet. The climate is very wet and unhealthy, and vegetation is luxurious, including magnificent forests of sandalwood, ebony, and "lignum vitæ" (a kind of Myrtle—Metrosideron). The inhabitants belong mainly to the Melanesian or Negroid stock, and are no doubt closely related to the Papuans of New Guinea. In some of the northern islands, such as Buka, the people often present a striking resemblance in their features, skin colour, and close-growing, woolly hair, to African Negroes. Some tribes in the islands, however, are akin to the Polynesians, and have long, straight hair. They were until quite recently the most ferocious cannibals of any part of the globe. In more remote periods this archipelago was connected with New Guinea, and thence derived the ancestors of its present wild animals, which include numerous Bats of very interesting types, some very large Rats the size of big rabbits, a Cuscus or marsupial Phalanger, and a large Frog about 8 inches long, besides some remarkable Parrots.
[43] Sometimes known as Marina. The name as given by de Quiros seems to have been spelt "Austrialia".
[44] As a matter of fact, the Spanish really only acquired something like mastery over the Philippine Islands at the beginning of the eighteenth century. Up till that time the islands were mostly governed by native chiefs, who paid tribute to Spain, and submitted very willingly to the direction of the Spanish friars or missionary brethren, who acquired considerable influence over the northern part of the Philippine archipelago, where Muhammadanism was not in any way established. The Spaniards never succeeded in finally conquering the whole of the Philippines. This task has only been achieved by their successors, the people of the United States.
[45] New Guinea (Nova Guinea) appears duly named on Mercator's first maps of the world, published in 1569. On the other side of a narrow strait (Torres Straits) is a jagged coastline obviously representing North Australia.
[46] The master of the Heemskerk was Captain Yde Tjercxzoon Holman, a Frisian from the Grand duchy of Oldenburg; and the pilot-major, or principal steersman, was a very noteworthy person in the expedition—Frans Jacobszoon Visscher, a native of Flushing, who had made some very remarkable voyages round about Japan, and had resided a good deal in that country.
[47] In crossing this bight Tasman was clever enough to surmise that they must be passing to the south of the land discovered by Pieter Nuyts in 1627 (the south coast of Australia); and owing to the tremendous swell setting in from the south he felt sure that there was no continent near him in that direction.
[48] Any sensible person looking at the map of New Zealand would say that this Dominion was divided into two great islands, the North Island and the South Island. But, ridiculously enough, the great South Island is constantly referred to by writers on New Zealand as the Middle Island, the term South Island being applied to a (relatively) very small island just off the extremity of the southern half of the Dominion, while the South Island is called the Middle Island. It should really be known as the South Island and the small island beyond it as Stewart Island.
[49] In noting this difference of speech Tasman unconsciously laid stress on the great distinction between the Melanesian tongues of the Oceanic Negroids and the Polynesian speech of New Zealand and nearly all the other Pacific islands and archipelagoes south of Fiji and New Caledonia and east of the Ladrones.