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They had been taken in a ship coming from the Spanish West Indies, and reported that the English had taken four other West India ships, and a caravel having the king of Spains letters of advice for the Portuguese ships coming from the East Indies; and that, including those they had taken, the English had at least 40 ships together, so that nothing could escape them; therefore, that the Portuguese ships coming from India durst not put into the islands, but took their course between 40° and 42° of N. latitude, whence they shaped their course for Lisbon, shunning likewise Cape St Vincent, as otherwise they could not look for safety, the sea being quite full of English ships.
I once, and only once, had an opportunity of seeing elephants that were either migrating, or had just arrived from a migration. This was between 3 degrees and 4 degrees N. latitude in Africa, between Obbo and Farajok. We were marching through an uninhabited country for about 30 miles, and in the midst of beautiful park-like scenery we came upon the magnificent sight of vast herds of elephants.
It was easy enough to see it from the great elevation at which he was now placed. There it lay, stretched far and wide, extending nearly a degree of latitude, north and south, and another of longitude, east and west, most truly resembling a vast dark-looking map, spread upon the face of the waters for his special examination.
In the thicket which covered the rock, I observed Pomaderris of Moreton Bay. In decreasing our latitude, both Mr. Gilbert and myself were inclined to think that, whenever a bird or a plant disappeared, it was owing to that circumstance.
"I appeal to Cæsar." She got up and took a chair close to the sofa. "Cæsar, I wish you'd keep that boy of yours in order. He is always so convinced he is in the right that he is unbearable." "Allow him latitude to-day. He'll meet opposition enough when he tries to foist this putty-clay of his on the world. By the way, what are you going to call it, Christopher?"
The story they tell us, that the mouth of this river is choked up with bulrushes of a monstrous growth, viz. three feet about, and twenty or thirty feet high, I must be allowed to say I believe nothing of; but as its navigation is of no use, because there is no trade that way, the Tartars, to whom alone it belongs, dealing in nothing but cattle; so nobody that ever I heard or, has been curious enough either to go down to the mouth of it in boats, or to come up from the mouth of it in ships; but this is certain, that this river running due east, in the latitude of sixty degrees, carries a vast concourse of rivers along with it, and finds an ocean to empty itself in that latitude; so we are sure of sea there.
I will add, that if any one prefers a colder or a warmer climate than that of the place in which he lives, he need only go north or south for an hour; or, if he prefers his own latitude, he can rise a few thousand feet in the air, or descend to one of the worked-out coal-mines which are now used as sanitariums, and secure his object by a slight change of altitude.
Even among the ancients, though many of their geometricians had acknowledged the sphericity of the globe, it was for a long time imagined that the earth was a third longer than it was broad, and thence arose the terms of longitude and latitude. St. Athanasius expresses himself most warmly against astronomers.
Before I abandoned our present position, however, I was anxious to make a journey to the shores of Lake Torrens to the westward; I had already visited its basin at points fully 150 miles apart, viz. in about 29 degrees 10 minutes S. latitude, and in 31 degrees 30 minutes S. I had also traced its course from various heights in Flinders range, from which it was distinctly visible, and in my mind, had not the slightest doubt that it was one continuous and connected basin.
The latitude of the south-west cape was determined on the passage to be 42 degrees 35 minutes South: and a running survey was made of the south coast of Tasmania.
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