By this time Dampier was as heartily weary as ever Swan had been of the voyage, if not of privateering, and waited for a chance to give his comrades the slip. Meanwhile the vessel, after cruising off Manila, where they took a couple of Spanish craft, proceeded from one island to another, from one port to another, until, the monsoon being close at hand, they decided to skirt the Philippine Islands, and, heading southwards towards what was then known as the Spice Islands, enter the Indian Ocean by way of Timor. The object of all this roundabout navigation is not very plain. Dampier asserts that the crew were in great fear of meeting with English or Dutch ships; still it is difficult to understand their motive in straying so wide afield from the common maritime highways of that period. They were now on the Australian parallels, in the shadow of a world lying dark upon the face of the ocean. As privateersmen they had little to hope or expect from pushing into regions full of mystery and peril. Dampier says that being clear of the islands they stood off south, intending to touch at New Holland “to see what that country would afford us.” One would wish for his dignity as a navigator that he had avowed, on his own part at least, a higher motive for the exploration. It does not seem to enter his head, at this point of his career at all events, that the discovery of the true character and area of the Terra Australis Incognita might bring to the marine explorer of its rocky coasts honours scarcely less glorious, renown certainly not less enduring, than were won by the mightiest of the old navigators. It is proper to remember, however, that Dampier was but a common sailor in this ship that had been run away with, and that his expectations, and perhaps his ambition, scarcely rose above those of a privateersman; though how far he resembled his shipmates in other directions we may gather from his narrative, which he builds wholly upon the journal he faithfully kept throughout; never remitting his strict practice of laborious observation whether in storm or in shine, whether amidst the bustle and activity of a chase, or the languor and listlessness of a long spell of tropical calm. “New Holland,” he says, “is a very large tract of land. It is not yet determined whether it is an island or a main continent; but I am certain that it joyns neither to Africa, Asia, or America.” Why he is certain he does not tell us, but he is too sagacious to err, though whilst he thus thinks, all that he sees of the vast territory is “low land with sandy banks against the sea.” He devotes several pages to descriptions of the natives, telling us that they have no houses, that they go armed with a piece of wood shaped like a cutlass, that their speech is guttural, that in consequence of the flies which tease and sting their faces, they keep their eyelids half closed; and so forth. One extract from several pages of most admirable, quaint description will, I trust, be permitted.