This Day We Had Sight Of
Land, Which Lay Four Miles West.
This land proved to be a cluster
of twenty islands, which in the maps are called Anthong Java.
They
lie ninety miles or thereabouts from the coast of New Guinea. It
may not be amiss to observe here, that what Captain Tasman calls the
coast of New Guinea, is in reality the coast of New Britain, which
Captain Dampier first discovered to be a large island separated from
the coast of New Guinea.
CHAPTER XIV: HIS ARRIVAL ON THE COAST OF NEW GUINEA.
On the 25th, in the latitude of 4 degrees 35 minutes south, and in
the longitude of 175 degrees 10 minutes, we found the variation 9
degrees 30 minutes east. We were then in the height of the islands
of Mark, which were discovered by William Schovten and James le
Maire. They are fourteen or fifteen in number, inhabited by
savages, with black hair, dressed and trimmed in the same manner as
those we saw before at the Bay of Murderers in New Zealand. On the
29th we passed the Green Islands, and on the 30th that of St. John,
which were likewise discovered by Schovten and Le Maire. This
island they found to be of a considerable extent, and judged it to
lie at the distance of one thousand eight hundred and forty leagues
from the coast of Peru. It appeared to them well inhabited and well
cultivated, abounding with flesh, fowl, fish, fruit, and other
refreshments.
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