Part 10

Some one, however, may say in opposition to the above arguments, that the commission which the Redeemer gave to the Apostles to preach the gospel should be understood as being general, and therefore applying to both hemispheres, in accordance with what He said to them before He ascended into heaven: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature.” As also relates St. Matthew: “All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.” The same also is written by the evangelist St. Luke. The answer to all this is, that it in no sense contradicts the distinction which has been made between the two principal folds of the gentiles which had to be taken from these two hemispheres; for in the passages quoted, Christ our Redeemer speaks in the persons of the Apostles, with all the apostolic men and preachers of the gospel who were to succeed them until the end of the world; but that which He committed to them bore immediate reference to the northern hemisphere, which was that which they divided amongst themselves and where they preached, for not one of the Apostles has been understood to have passed to the southern hemisphere. The words also which the Redeemer added in the abovementioned passage: “And there shall be one fold and one shepherd,” prove that He there speaks of the fold which was to be converted from the southern hemisphere; because, until that hemisphere be settled, the preaching of the gospel will not have been consummated, and consequently the making one fold of the two hemispheres under one shepherd cannot be verified. Thus the conversion and spiritual and evangelical conquest of the southern hemisphere has remained to be effected by the Apostolic men of this kingdom.

Moreover, long ago, the Divine Majesty foretold this same thing by the prophet Obadiah, who says thus: “The captivity of Jerusalem, which is in the Bosphorus, shall possess the cities of the south, and Saviours shall come up on Mount Sion to judge the Mount of Esau.” And where our Vulgate puts Bosphorus the Hebrew text says Sepharat, which signifies Spain, according to the Chaldaic paraphrast and the Sederholan of the Hebrews and Rabbi Zonathas Abenuciel and many other Hebrews. And it is with much propriety that, in the place of Spain, our interpreter has put Bosphorus, for that word signifies the passage of an ox, that is to say, a strait. Now there are in the Mediterranean three straits of this name; one is called the Thracian Bosphorus, which is that of Constantinople, which is the passage from the said Mediterranean to the Black Sea; another is called the Cimmerian Bosphorus, which is the passage from the Black Sea to the Lake Meotis; the third is the Gaditan Bosphorus, which is the Strait of Gibraltar. When, therefore, hydrographers speak of the Bosphorus alone without addition, it is understood to mean the principal one in the Mediterranean, by which it communicates with the ocean, and therefore the prophet Obadiah meant the same when he said “the captivity of Jerusalem which is in the Bosphorus,” that is to say, which is in Spain. But, as has been said, our translator has with much propriety and in accordance with the intention of the prophet, given Bosphorus as the rendering for the word Sepharat; for although the transmigration of Jerusalem which was in Spain was to possess the cities of the south, its conquerors had to go forth principally from that part of Spain which is nearest to the Bosphorus or Strait of Gibraltar, as is seen to be the case.

The literal meaning of this prophecy therefore is, that the transmigration of Jerusalem which was in the Bosphorus, that is to say, the Spaniards who have been the most constant of the faithful, and to whom was transmitted the perseverance of the faith of Abraham and Jacob, are to possess the cities of the south, that is to say, the southern hemisphere, gaining over it a spiritual and apostolical conquest by the preaching of the gospel. And then the saviours, who are the preachers of the gospel and who bring salvation to the gentile, shall come up on Mount Sion to judge the Mount of Esau, which is as much as to say, they shall ascend to the highest climax of the sovereign virtues, from whence they shall announce to the gentiles the true knowledge of their Creator and Redeemer. And thus they shall judge them by condemning and extirpating their errors, and reducing them to the purity of our holy faith. After their conversion also, they shall judge them at the divine tribunal of the sacrament of penitence. The prophet concludes by saying: “And the kingdom shall be the Lord’s.” For when these Catholic kingdoms shall have drawn to the faith this southern hemisphere and shall have proclaimed and sung this glorious victory, the Redeemer will have made perfect the kingdom of His Church, which now is defective in the greatest part from not having accomplished this grand object. Hence it may be gathered how great a service this will be to the Redeemer, and how blessed will be the prince of this monarchy who shall undertake and complete it. Thus it has been seen that the prophet Obadiah prophecied to the letter the conquest and spiritual possession of the southern hemisphere, through the medium of the preaching of the gospel by the Spanish nation, which has preserved in its integrity the faith of the Redeemer and of His Catholic Church.

Some have asked, as already pointed out, whether the southern hemisphere be not all water, forming, as it were, a great part of the ocean, so as to leave but little of the surface of the earth in it uncovered. The reply to this is, that, according to what we are taught by sacred writ and by philosophical reasoning, there is proportionably as great a surface of land uncovered in the southern hemisphere as in the northern. For the fiat of the Creator, that the waters should be collected into certain hollows of the earth, in order that there should remain uncovered the portion that was necessary for the production of vegetation, as where He says in Genesis the 1st: “Let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear,” supposes this water to have been created an entire orb, which covered and surrounded the whole of the earth, in the same manner as we reckon the positions of the elements; the land the lowest, in the middle of which is the centre of the whole elementary and celestial machine, then the water, and after that the air and igneous substance or the fire, which reaches its culmination or convex part in the concave of the celestial firmament. Then if, when God commanded that the waters should be gathered together, it was to be understood solely with reference to the northern hemisphere, the water in the southern hemisphere would remain as it was, surrounding and covering all, and the whole sphere of water could not be contained beneath one spherical surface equidistant to the centre of gravity, which always seeks to be united with the centre of the whole machine. And thus all the water of the southern hemisphere would be more remote from the said centre than that of the other hemisphere, without being contained in any sinus, and thus would be much higher, and naturally could not contain itself without flowing towards the other hemisphere, until it placed itself in equilibrium with the said centre of gravity; as is plainly gathered from the demonstration of Archimedes, in his work “De Insidentibus Aquæ,” and is manifestly seen in the ebb and flow of the ocean; in which it is observed, that when the water rises above the surface of equidistance from its centre of gravity, it immediately outflows its ordinary limits until it finds its level with that surface; so that the gathering together of the waters was proportional in the two halves of the sphere of earth and water, gathering itself into certain hollows of the earth, which also have their means of correspondence between the two hemispheres. For as the quiet and equilibrium of the parts of the earth and water with respect to the centre of gravity consist in the equal tendencies of the opposite parts towards the same centre, it follows that the sinuses or receptacles of water in the one half are nearly proportioned in their position and other respects to those of the other. From all which it follows, that in the southern hemisphere there is an uncovered surface of land correspondent, or nearly so, to that which has been discovered in the northern hemisphere.

If any one should say in opposition to the above argument, that the Psalmist appears to assert that the hemisphere opposite to the northern was entirely covered with water, when he says: “Who stretcheth out the earth above the waters, for His mercy endureth for ever;”—in which the real meaning of the royal prophet would seem to be, that that half of the earth which is between the equinoctial and the Arctic pole was that which was peopled, and that, as by a miracle, all the earth was stretched out above the waters, which covered the other half as far as the Antarctic pole—the answer is, that the Psalmist does not intend to say absolutely that the earth is stretched out above the waters; for that is impossible, since these two bodies, earth and water, gravitate towards the centre of gravity, which is that of the mass or sphere of land and water, and thus of necessity the water upon the earth is contained in its hollows; but, as by an allegory, he said that it might seem to those who inhabit the one hemisphere, that the land was stretched upon the waters which extended towards the other hemisphere, as it is our custom in imagination to think that the antipodes are below those to whom they are antipodes, it being in conformity to the law of gravitation that both one and the other are alike uppermost, and the lower part, which is the centre of gravity, towards which both incline, is common to all.

And thus, in agreement with this, the same prophet, speaking of the divine foundation of the earth, says also in another place: “Who hath founded the earth upon its own stability, that it shall not be moved for ever;” which was as much as to say, that the earth has no other stability or foundation for its remaining in the position in which it is but its own stability, which consists in the equal tendencies of its opposite parts towards the centre of gravity, a law to which the water also is subjected, and, as it rests upon the earth, it keeps the same relation to the centre of gravity; from all which results the aforesaid equalization of the whole mass of earth and water to that centre, and in this consists its stability. Hence it follows that the Psalmist, in the passage first quoted, spoke generally of the two hemispheres; since the inhabitants of each one might imagine to themselves that all the earth of that hemisphere was kept in its place by the water contained in the hollows of the other. The expression that the earth never shall move at any time, implies that it is naturally impossible that its centre of gravity should be moved from the centre of the entire elementary and celestial system, for that would be that gravitation should ascend or move upwards. Hence the statement of the Psalmist in no way opposes what has been demonstrated, that there is as much surface of land uncovered and free from water in the southern hemisphere as there is in the northern.

Also, if we recur to the celestial influences which, in regard to temperature, affect the earth and water with dryness and cold, heat and moisture, cold and moisture, and heat and dryness, and cause some parts of the earth to be uncovered by water and to be kept dry, while others remain under water; these are the influences of the fixed stars, which are vertical to the southern hemisphere, and as efficacious as those of the northern hemisphere for keeping the parts of the said southern hemisphere dry, uncovered, and habitable, as may be proved by observing the celestial objects which correspond to each hemisphere; when it will be seen that, of the forty-eight fixed stars, four-and-twenty correspond to each hemisphere, and also of the twelve signs of the zodiac, six belong to each; so that it cannot be doubted that there is in the southern hemisphere at least as great a part of the earth’s surface uncovered as in the north. Now it is consequently manifest that this part of the earth is as fertile and habitable as the northern hemisphere, for the south has of necessity the same distribution of zones as the north; that is to say, half of the torrid zone from the equinoctial line to the tropic of Capricorn, then the temperate zone from that to the Antarctic circle, and then that which lies between the Antarctic circle and the Antarctic pole; and those zones in the two hemispheres which correspond to each other, have (allowance being made for the natural motion of the sun through the ecliptic) the same, or nearly the same temperature, excepting such differences as are caused by certain vertical stars and the various form, arrangement, and temperament of the land, from which it occurs that in the hottest part of a zone there are some spots very temperate and cool. And thus in those zones which are generally cold, there are some parts which are milder and very free from the severity of the cold. And if particular consideration be given to the influences produced on temperature by the constellations belonging to the southern hemisphere, it will be found that there are lands in it, not only as habitable, but much more so than in the other hemisphere; and it has been seen by experience, from the discoveries which have been made in that half of the torrid zone which is south of the equator, that whereas the ancients considered its heat to be so excessive that it was utterly uninhabitable, there have been found in it parts as habitable and of as mild a temperature as in the most temperate and habitable parts of Spain. This has been shown in the country of the Baia de Sanfelipe y Santiago, discovered by captain Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, which is very near to the middle of the southern half of the torrid zone, where, in the month of May, was found the same mildness of temperature, the same songs of birds in the twilight, the same agreeableness and delight in the softness of the air, as is found in Spain in the mildest and most refreshing season of spring. And although, in the middle of the time that they were in the bay, the sun went down about twenty degrees to the north, which, together with the fifteen or twenty minutes of the latitude of the bay, made their distance from the sun, which was in the south of the zenith, little more than twenty-five degrees, and thus fifty-five of southern altitude; yet was the temperature extremely mild for a situation so near to the middle of the southern half of the torrid zone. But in other islands which they discovered in the same southern half of the torrid zone, when the sun stood in southern signs for January, February, and March, being vertical or very near the vertex or zenith of those islands, there was not felt greater heat there than in our summer, nor, indeed, did there appear to have been so much on those occasions when they went on shore for the purpose of taking in water.

By the same reasoning it is shown, that the land of the southern hemisphere is greatly stored with metals and rich in precious stones and pearls, fruits and animals; and from the discoveries and investigations which have been already made in this southern hemisphere, there has been found such fertility, so great plenty and abundance of animals, swine, oxen, and other beasts of different kinds fit for the sustenance of man as has never been seen in our Europe; also of birds and fishes of different species, and, amongst them all, those which we most value as wholesome and delicate on the shores of our own ocean; and fruits, some of which we already know, and others of different kinds, all which may well excite the greatest admiration, as has been related in detail in the treatise referred to at the beginning of this memorial.

It must be observed that, although the arguments we have hitherto advanced refer to the entire southern hemisphere, yet that which we now propose to have explored, discovered, and evangelically subdued, is that part of the said hemisphere which lies in the Pacific Ocean, between the longitude of the coast of Peru, as far as the Baia de San Felipe y Santiago and the longitude which remains up to Bachan and Ternate, in which longitude the following most remarkable discoveries have already been made. The adelantado Alvaro Mendaña de Meyra first discovered New Guadalcanal, which is a very large island very near New Guinea; and some have imagined that what Mendaña called New Guadalcanal was part of New Guinea, but this is of no consequence whatever. New Guinea belongs also to the southern hemisphere, and was discovered some time before; and almost all of it has been since discovered on the outside [the northern side]. It is a country encompassed with water,[9] and, according to the greater number of those who have seen it, it is seven hundred leagues in circuit: others make it much more: we do not give a close calculation here, because what has been said is sufficient for the intention of this discourse. The rest will be said in its proper place. The middle of those great islands are in from thirteen to fourteen degrees of south latitude. The adelantado Mendaña afterwards discovered the archipelago of islands which he called the Islands of Solomon, whereof, great and small, he saw thirty-three of very fine appearance, the middle of which was, according to his account, in eleven degrees south latitude. After this he discovered, in the year 1565, the island of San Christobal, not far from the said archipelago, the middle of which was in from seven to eight degrees of south latitude. The island was one hundred and ten leagues in circuit. Subsequently, in the year ’95, the said adelantado sailed for the last time from Peru, taking with him for his chief pilot the Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, with the purpose of colonizing the island of San Christobal, and from thence attempting the discovery of the southern terra firma. He shortly after discovered, to the east of the said island of San Christobal, the island of Santa Cruz, in ten degrees south latitude. The island was more than one hundred leagues in circuit, very fertile and populous, as, indeed, appeared all those islands which we have mentioned, and most of them of very beautiful aspect. In this island of Santa Cruz the adelantado had such great contentions with his soldiers, that he had some of the chief of them killed, because he understood that they intended to mutiny, and in a few days after he died. Whereupon, as the admiral of the fleet had parted company a short time before they had reached the said island, the whole project was frustrated, and Pedro Fernandez de Quiros took Doña Isabel Garreto, the wife of the adelantado, and the remainder of the fleet to Manilla.

Some time afterwards Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, being at Valladolid, came to this court to petition for the same discovery, and was dispatched to the viceroy of Peru, who was to supply him with all that was requisite. He sailed from Lima in January of the year 1605, with three vessels, the Capitana, the Almiranta, and one Zabra, with Luis Vaez de Torres for his admiral, in order to colonize the island of Santa Cruz, and to follow out the intentions of the adelantado Mendaña. After discovering in this voyage many islands and islets, he put in at the island of Taumaco, which is from eight to nine leagues in circuit, in ten degrees south latitude, and about one thousand seven hundred leagues distant from Lima, which is about eighty leagues to the eastward of the island of Santa Cruz. The cacique or chief of Taumaco informed him, as well as he could make himself understood, that if he sought the coast of the great Terra Firma, he would light upon it sooner by going to the south than to the island of Santa Cruz; for in the south there were lands very fertile and populous, and running down to a great depth towards the said south. In consequence of which Pedro Fernandez de Quiros abandoned his idea of going to colonize the island of Santa Cruz, and sailed southward with a slight variation to the south-west, discovering many islands and islets, which were very populous and of pleasing appearance, until, in fifteen degrees and twenty minutes south, he discovered the land of the Baia de San Felipe y Santiago, which, on the side that he first came upon, ran from east to west. It appeared to be more than one hundred leagues long; the country was very populous, and, although the people were dark, they were very well favoured; there were also many plantations of trees, and the temperature was so mild that they seemed to be in Paradise; the air, also, was so healthy, that in a few days after they arrived all the men who were sick recovered. The land produced most abundantly many kinds of very delicious fruits, as well as animals and birds in great variety. The bay, also, was no less abundant in fish of excellent flavour, and of all the kinds which are found on the coast of the sea in Spain. The Indians ate for bread certain roots like the batata, either roasted or boiled, which when the Spaniards tasted they found them better eating and more sustaining than biscuit.

For certain reasons (they ought to have been very weighty) which hitherto have not been ascertained with entire certainty, Pedro Fernandez de Quiros left the Almiranta and the Zabra in the said bay, and himself sailed with his ship, the Capitana, for Mexico, from whence he again came to this court to advocate anew the colonization of that land, and was again sent back to the viceroy of Peru, and died at Panamá on his return voyage to Lima. The admiral Luis Vaez de Torres being left in the bay and most disconsolate for the loss of the Capitana, resolved, with the consent of his companions, to continue the discovery. Being prevented by stress of weather from making the circuit of the land of the Baia, to see whether it were an island or mainland as they had imagined, and finding himself in great straits in twenty-one degrees south, to which high latitude he had persevered in sailing in about a south-westerly direction from the fifteen or twenty minutes south in which lay the aforesaid Baia, he put back to the north-west and north-east up to fourteen degrees, in which he sighted a very extensive coast, which he took for that of New Guadalcanal; _from thence he sailed westwards, having constantly on the right hand the coast of another very great land, which he continued coasting, according to his own reckoning, more than six hundred leagues, having it still to the right hand_[10] (in which course may be understood to be comprehended New Guadalcanal and New Guinea). Along the same coast he discovered a great diversity of islands. The whole country was very fertile and populous; he continued his voyage on to Bachan and Ternate, and from thence to Manilla, which was the end of this discovery.