The nature of the soil, climate, and the general character of Terra Australis, Dampier could only conjecture. The ideas he had formed of this unknown continent were, that it was a vast tract of land situated in the richest climates in the world, having in it especially all the advantage of the torrid zone, so that in coasting it the navigator might be sure of meeting with broad areas productive of the rich fruits, the drugs and spices, and perhaps the minerals discoverable in other parts in, as he concluded, the same parallels of latitude. His scheme was to narrowly survey all islands, shores, capes, bays, creeks, and harbours, fit for shelter as well as defence, to take careful soundings as he went, to note tides, currents, and wind, and the character of the weather, with a special view to the settling of the best districts. He also proposed to closely observe the disposition and commodities of the natives, though he candidly admits that after his experience of their neighbours “he expected no great matters from them.” The course he originally designed to take was to the westward by way of the Straits of Magellan, so as to strike the eastern coast of Australia; and there is very little doubt that had he pursued his first intention he would have anticipated nearly every discovery of importance in those waters subsequently made by his celebrated successor James Cook. Unhappily his judgment erred in one essential direction. He was of opinion that the lands lying nearest the equator would best repay the explorer. Nor perhaps could he guess how far he would have to penetrate the high latitudes if he stood south; and having passed the greater portion of his seafaring life in Mexican, Pacific, and Indian seas, his love of the sun, fortified by recollection of the cold of the Horn and of the one bitter voyage he took to Newfoundland, might suffice to determine him on pinning his faith as an explorer and on limiting his curiosity as a sailor to the summer regions of the globe. Yet his great knowledge of the equatorial climates should certainly have warned him against a Northern Australian and New Guinea quest. Further, there were the experiences of Tasman to help him, whose relations are as finger-posts in the extracts of Dirk Rembrantz. Had he steered westwards, the sighting of the New Zealand coast to the south, or of the shining islands of the Paumotu and other groups to the north, would have borne in the truth upon his ready and sagacious mind, corrected his fears of cold weather, given him clear views as to the southernmost extension of the Terra Incognita, and perhaps have antedated the civilisation of Australia by half a century. In an evil moment, intimidated by thoughts of the ice of Tierra del Fuego, and worried by the murmurs and half-heartedness of a crew, the majority of whom were quite young seamen, “only two in the ship ever having passed the Line, and those two none of the oldest,” he