Dangerous Shoals For Torres Along
pp. 59-62 · Read in the full issue
Today's Disputed Frontier
By Captain Brett Milder
In July, 1606, Captain Luis Baez de Torres was sailing north in the Coral Sea in the ship San Pedro, accompanied by his small consort, Los Tres Reyes. These two ships had been deserted at Santo in the New Hebrides by the commander of the expedition, de Quiros, who had abandoned the voyage and returned in his flagship to America.
Torres, endeavouring to complete the voyage, had a copy of the Royal Orders giving the courses to be steered in search of the Great South Land. He had already been close to the Great Barrier Reef in the latitude of Mackay, in 21 deg south. From that point he was to steer north-west, up to 4 deg latitude, and sail along the north coast of New Guinea to Manila, and thence to the Moluccas and the Cape of Good Hope to Spain.
He probably realised that on a north-west course he might bump into
the bottom of New Guinea, so I am sure that he steered north instead, though he wrote NNW in his report, to be more in accordance with the orders.
Torres had with him a galaxy of officers, including three from the flagship who had disagreed with Quiros. The first of these was Ochoa de Bilbao, chief pilot of the Fleet, sacked by Quiros and sent under arrest to Torres’ ship. The next was the noble “Caballero” Captain Don Diego de Prado y Tovar, a “spare captain”, possibly intended to take command if Quiros died. He was a very versatile man, not a mariner but a military engineer, and to him we owe the excellent maps of the voyage which have survived and also the fullest account of it. The third man was the chief surgeon, Sanches de Aranda.
Having sailed north for about six
days at about four knots, with the usual tradewind from about east south-east, breakers and land were sighted ahead at dawn on July 14.
The ships turned hard a-starboard, and the sails close-hauled, on a north east course to clear the breakers, and pass to the eastward of New Guinea.
But as the sun rose the wind got too strong, and made their course im possible. So they were “forced to submit, and to sail westwards” out side the line of reefs and islands.
Torres gives the latitude of their land fall as Hi deg south, while Prado wrote 12 deg, but there can be no doubt that the land was Tagula Island (Sud-Est), with Rossel Island also in sight to the north-east.
They followed the reefs along for four days, and put out to sea each night for safety. On the fifth day they saw some high little islands like sugar loaves, and a boat was sent to look
for a passage and take soundings.
These turned out to be from seven to 10 fathoms, so the position was probably west of Uluma or Suckling Reef, and the islands must have been the Dumoulins.
Steering about north over the sunken barrier reef, they passed by the small islands and reached Sideia Island, anchoring in 14 fathoms in the first bay they came to, on July 18, 1606. They named the island Tierra de San Buenaventure, because they had first sighted the land on that feast day, the 14th.
They then named the bay the Puerto de San Francisco. Sariba Island, the next to the west, was not named as it was assumed to be part of New Guinea. On the next day they landed and climbed a hill, raid ing some native gardens on the way, and they sighted the bays and islands to the north, in what is now called Liliki or Jenkins Bay.
As they were still hopeful of finding a northern route, and thence to Manila, they put their two boats in the water with 20 armed men, to look for a passage. They found one only a mile or two to the west, but it was too narrow for their ships, being only 200 feet wide, and with very strong tides in it. The two boats were attacked by a force of 200 natives in
canoes, who were soon put to flight by volleys of powder and shot. 1 ne passage was named the Entrance of the Battle, but it is now known as Rocky Pass.
Once through the passage the Spaniards spent a few days exploring Jenkms Bay as far as Challis Head, where they had a good view of Milne Bay and East Cape, and they sus pected that ships could get through to the north-east, except that Rocky Pass barred the way.
After 15 days between Basilaki and Sideia Island Torres took possession of the land in the name of the King of Spain, and then made westwards along the coast, still in completely uncharted waters. Some charts showed the solid land of Terra Aus tralis Incognita extending here from the South Pole, while others showed nothing at all. Sailing by day with good lookouts, and anchoring each night, they worked their way to their next port, in Orangerie Bay. This name was given by Bougainville in 1767, just 161 years later. Here again Prado’s chart is much better than either Bougainville’s or Moresby’s, and extends about 55 miles from east to west, from Mullens Harbour to Mailu and Lopom Islands.
After various expeditions ashore.
including a battle with natives at Mailu, the ships sailed off this map and made west again. They probably anchored at Redscar Bay, west of Port Moresby, and again at an island which may have been Yule. Here they were struck by an easterly gale, and ran with bare masts out to sea.
The next mention is of running into shallow water of three to nine fathoms, which Torres called a placet or bank. They found themselves baulked by reefs as they tried to head NW or west, and so they anchored at an island in 9 deg south. This was probably Parana or Bampton Island, but they called it Malandanca be cause they had been “dancing around madly” among the reefs.
They were now forced by the reefs to steer away from the coast on a south-west course, going from one island to another and trying more than once to get back to the coast.
This occupied about a month, until they were nearly down to Cape York.
They anchored on the eve of San Francisco (October 3) about two miles south of Prince of Wales Island, in five fathoms.
Next day they steered west in six and seven fathoms of water, along what is now known as Endeavour Strait. They finally passed over the bar at the western end, on which is
22 ft of water at low tide, and found themselves at sunset in an open sea, with the depths slowly increasing. They probably steered west all night, and at daylight would have been in about 18 fathoms, and then steered happily north towards Manila in the Philip pines.
As there were no means at that time of measuring the longitude, and having been sailing for 10 months since leaving South America, their reckoning was bound to be very un certain. Torres, apparently, thought that he was about 1,000 miles further west, on the southern coast of Timor.
When he ran into New Guinea again and rounded False Cape, he gave it the name of Cambaru, thinking that it was Sumbawa, which was named Cambara on charts of 1600. He was disappointed to find that he was still in vast areas of shallow water and shoals. After False Cape he got into deeper water for three days, well away from the coast until he arrived off Cape Steenboom in 5 deg south.
Here at least the placel or bank ended.
The coast now ran along for a long way in about 4 deg south, with plenty of rivers, bays and good anchorages.
They anchored in three good har bours, and Prado made a map of the third, which is the area now known as Triton Bay and Iris Strait. They were anchored in the “Puerto de San Lucas” from October 18 to 26. Here they got supplies of fresh water and firewood, and supplies of fresh food from the shore and native gardens.
From the Port of St Luke they sailed west again, but had to turn south-west to get through Nautilus Strait, before working around again to a general course of WNW. This took them through groups of little islands along to the end of New Guinea, which Torres gives correctly as in H deg south, at Cape Sele. In these islands they found Chinese trade goods and some iron implements, so they realised that they were in the trading zone of the Moluccas or Spice Islands. The ships reached the equator at Jailolo Strait, off the eastern tip of Halmahera, and turned south to pass around the island south-about. This brought them into the legendary Isles of Spice, named Bachan, Kayoa, Motil, Tidore and Ternate, At Ternate they at last found a Spanish fort and trading post, with a small garrison under a commandant.
This post had only been Spanish for about six months, having been cap tured by the governor of the Philip pines. Torres spent about three months there, then resumed his voyage through waters that were at least charted; he passed up the west
coast of Mindinao and so on to the town of Manila.
He had been 17 months on his famous voyage, during which time he had lost only one man, and that by a poisoned arrow. He had collected about 20 natives from his new coast line and islands, intending to show them to the King of Spain as his newest subjects.
On his arrival at Manila on May 22, 1607, Torres found the govern ment was being run by the Audiencia until the arrival of a new governor.
They said they had no money or stores to supply Torres for his voyage to Spain, and we can only assume that Torres and his crew and ship were used in the Philippines, as we have no further news of him or the ship.
Prado alone got back to Spain, though it took him about eight years.
And so the magnificent voyage of Torres ended in a great burst of silence.
His discoveries appeared belatedly on some charts, but as all other charts ignored his work, there was grave doubt until Cook’s time about the existence of Torres Strait itself. The main information on the voyage was Torres’ letter to the King, which was unearthed in about 1770. The four maps of Prado, out of the total of seven he is known to have drawn, did not appear until 1878, and finally the narrative of Prado was found in 1929.
Other items have been found in recent years by Father Celsus Kelly, OEM, whose unremitting toil has
been mainly centred on Quiros. We are still hoping for more documentary evidence and forgotten charts, but in the meantime have to extract the utmost from what clues we have at present. Many of these have been misread, mistranslated and misinter preted by scholars and navigators through the years.
Torres remains in history as a very successful commander, but there are no personal details of his life be fore or after the voyage. Prado calls him a Breton, which probably meant that he was from Galicia in NW Spain, and his name Baez suggests that his ancestry was Basque or Biscayan. In delving through the documents we find many items of interest to study, including some which may be elucidated by anthro pologists or district officers in Papua.
Apart from four drawings of natives by Prado, or at least annotated by him, there are several names of tribes and races which it may not be too late to identify. According to Prado the names of these were, from Tagula to Samarai, the Canaiis, the Hunis and the Boniguis; on the mainland near Mailu or Toulon Island were the Ratiles or Railes; west of Port Moresby began the Helabons or Ela bons, which echo the native name of Port Moresby, Ela. The Ratiles wor shipped the sun, Nina and the moon Puri. West of Cape Steenboom they were called Papuas, which was sup posed to be a Malay word.
In the four drawings the natives near Samarai are fair-skinned, and shown with tattoos. At Orangerie Bay they are said to be corpulent; those in Torres Strait islands are black, and the Papuas are described as reddish.
There are also descriptions of the usual food in the various areas, and the weapons of warfare.
One strange item of the latter is the use of hollow canes through which lime is blown into the eyes of ad versaries in West New Guinea.
Similar canes or bamboos are men tioned by Cook on his only landing in West New Guinea, about 140 miles north of False Cape.
Prado’s drawings, or rather paint ings, of natives show signs of Euro peanisation; the bows are often with double arcs, like Cupid’s Bow, and the arrows are shown as carried in sheaves over the right shoulder, as in England in the 15th century. The items we have for research are so full of problems and apparent contradictions that it will never be possible to sort them all out with no doubts remain ing.
• The magazine section is continued on p 61 with MANA.