The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea: Being The Narrative of Portuguese and Spanish Discoveries in the Australasian Regions, between the Years 1492-1606, with Descriptions of their Old Charts. — John Shaqi
The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea: Being The Narrative of Portuguese and Spanish Discoveries in the Australasian Regions, between the Years 1492-1606, with Descriptions of their Old Charts.Collingridge, George
History
The First Discovery of Australia and New Guinea: Being The Narrative of Portuguese and Spanish Discoveries in the Australasian Regions, between the Years 1492-1606, with Descriptions of their Old Charts.
Collingridge, George
Australia -- Discovery and exploration -- Portuguese; Australia -- Discovery and exploration -- Spanish; Oceania -- Discovery and exploration -- Portuguese; Oceania -- Discovery and exploration -- Spanish
After which Queiroz ordered Torres to take an armed party, and penetrate
further into the interior...They saw more and better farms and villages
than before, and at one village they found the natives much occupied with
their dances. When they saw the Spaniards approaching, they began a
flight to the mountains, leaving strewn about, as they fled, bows,
arrows, and darts. The people of the party found two roast pigs, and all
their other food, which they eat at their ease. They carried off twelve
live pigs, eight hens and chickens, and they saw a tree which astonished
them, for its trunk could not have been encircled by fifteen or twenty
men; so they returned to the ships. Queiroz, on the last day of Easter,
taking with him such an escort as seemed necessary, went to an adjacent
farm of the natives and sowed a quantity of maize, cotton, anions,
melons, pumpkins, beans, pulse, and other seeds of Spain; and returned to
the ships laden with many roots and fish caught on the beach. Next day
Queiroz sent the master of the camp, with thirty soldiers, to reconnoitre
a certain height, where they found a large and pleasant valley, with
villages. When the inhabitants saw them coming, many assembled together
in arms. They caught there three boys, the oldest being about seven years
of age, and twenty pigs. With these they began to retreat, and the
natives, with vigour and bravery, attacked their vanguard, centre and
rearguard, shooting many arrows. The chiefs came to the encounter, and by
their charges forced the Spaniards to lose the ground they were gaining.
Arrived at a certain pass, they found the rocks occupied by many natives,
who were animated by the desire to do them as much harm as possible. Here
was the hardest fight, their arrows and stones hurled down from the
heights causing great damage to the party.
When the captain heard the noise of the muskets and the shouting, he
ordered three guns to be fired off, to frighten the natives and encourage
his people, and the better to effect this at the port, those in the ships
and on the beach were sent to support the retreating party in great
haste. The forces having united, they came to the ships, saving the
spoils, and all well.
Shortly after, the master of the camp was sent to examine the mouth of
the river, which is in the middle of the bay, with the launch, a boat,
and a party of men. He tried the depth at the mouth, and found that there
was no bottom, with the length of an oar and his own arm. He went further
up in the beat, and the view of the river gave much pleasure to those who
were with him, as well for its size and the clearness of the water, as
for its gentle current and the beauty of the trees on its banks.
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