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The only way to test these earlier observations is by later ones. For instance, in the year 1772, a Dutchman named Roggewein discovered Easter Island. His expedition had cost the government a good deal, and he had to bring home his money's worth of discoveries.
This it was hoped would both facilitate examination, and secure mutual assistance, and was the order of sailing preserved throughout the voyage. He now directed his course in search of the land seen by Davis in 1686, between 27° and 28° south latitude, and sought for in vain by Roggewein.
This is so true that for upwards of one hundred years we hear of no Dutch voyage in pursuit of Le Maire's discoveries; and we see, when Commodore Roggewein, in our own time, revived that noble design, it was again cramped by the same power that stifled it before; and though the States did justice to the West India Company, and to the parties injured, yet the hardships they suffered, and the plain proof they gave of the difficulties that must be met with in the prosecution of such a design, seem to have done the business of the East India Company, and damped the spirit of discovery, for perhaps another century, in Holland.
Yet are they but the survivors of a race doomed doomed from the day that Roggewein in his clumsy, high-pooped frigate first saw their land, and marvelled at the imperishable relics of a dead greatness.
The rivers are neither numerous nor large, but there is no lack of fresh water; it springs up in abundance in many parts in the interior and along the coast. The Dutch "three-ship expedition," under Roggewein, in 1722, seems to have been the first to notice these islands. Then followed the French navigators, Bougainville and La Perouse, the former in 1768 and the latter in 1787.
The most western point of the island he called the Cape of Good Hope, because by doubling that cape he expected to reach the island of Banda; and that we may not wonder that he was in doubts and difficulties as to the situation on of these places, we ought to reflect that Schovten was the first who sailed round the world by this course, and the last too, except Commodore Roggewein, other navigators choosing rather to run as high as California, and from thence to the Ladrone Islands, merely because it is the ordinary route.
The track of the Endeavour had demonstrated, that the land seen by Tasman, Juan Fernandes, Hermite, the commander of a Dutch squadron, Quiros, and Roggewein, was not, as they had supposed, part of such a continent.
So sparing has nature been of her favours to this spot, that there is in it no safe anchorage, no wood for fuel, no fresh water worth taking on board. The most remarkable objects in the country are some surprising gigantic statues, which were first seen by Roggewein.
The New Philippines, or Carolinas, were first made known by the accidental arrival of a family of their natives at the Philippines in 1686. Easter island, a detached and remote country, which, however, is inhabited by the Polynesian race, was discovered by Roggewein in 1686.
A hundred and seventy years ago Roggewein, on the dawn of an Easter Sunday, discerned through the misty, tropic haze the grey outlines of an island under his lee beam, and sailed down upon it.
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