extended along the seashore, and afterwards rose like an amphitheatre up to the mountains, whose summits were lost in the clouds.  There were three ranges of mountains, and the highest chain was distant upwards of twenty-five leagues from the shore.  The melancholy condition to which we were reduced* neither allowed us to spend some time in visiting this beautiful country, which by all appearances was rich and fertile, nor to stand to the westward in search of a passage to the south of New Guinea, which might open to us a new and short route to the Moluccas by way of the Gulf of Carpentaria.  Nothing, indeed, was more probable than the existence of such a passage."** Bougainville, it may be mentioned, was not aware of the previous discovery of Torres, which indeed was not published to the world until after our illustrious navigator Cook, in August, 1770, had confirmed the existence of such a strait by passing from east to west between the shores of Australia and New Guinea.

(Footnote.  They were beginning to run short of provisions, and the salt meat was so bad that the men preferred such RATS as they could catch.  It even became necessary to prevent the crew from eating the LEATHER about the rigging and elsewhere in the ship.)

(**Footnote.  Voyage autour du Monde par la Fregate du Roi La Boudeuse et la Flute l’Etoile en 1766 a 1769 page 258.  See also the chart of the Louisiade given there, which, however, does not correspond very closely with the text.)

The Boudeuse and Etoile were engaged in working to windward along this new land (as it was thought to be) until the 26th, when, having doubled its eastern point, to which the significant name of Cape Deliverance was given, they were enabled to bear away to the North-North-East.  The name of Gulf of the Louisiade was bestowed by Bougainville upon the whole of the space thus traversed by him, extending between Cape Deliverance and that portion of (what has since been determined to be) the coast of New Guinea of which he gives so glowing a description, and calls the Cul de Sac de l’Orangerie upon his chart.

CAPTAIN EDWARDS.

The next addition to our knowledge of these shores was made in August, 1791, by Captain Edwards in H.M.S.  Pandora, shortly before the wreck of that vessel in Torres Strait, when returning from Tahiti with the mutineers of the Bounty.  In the published narrative of that voyage the following brief account is given.  “On the 23rd, saw land, which we supposed to be the Louisiade, a cape bearing north-east and by east.  We called it Cape Rodney.  Another contiguous to it was called Cape Hood:  and a mountain between them, we named Mount Clarence.  After passing Cape Hood, the land appears lower, and to trench away about north-west, forming a deep bay, and it may be doubted whether it joins New Guinea or not."* The positions assigned to two of these places, which subsequent experience has shown it is difficult to identify, are: