CHAPTER XII
THE STORY OF A LOST ARCHIPELAGO.

The most interesting feature in the history of the discovery of the Solomon Group is the circumstance that during a period of two hundred years after it was first discovered by the Spaniards it was lost to the world and its very existence doubted. In the belief that I shall be treading on ground new to the general reader, I will at once pass on to relate how this large archipelago was lost and found again.

Fancied discoveries of the precious metals in the island of Guadalcanar inflamed the imaginations of the Spaniards: and the reports, which they gave on their return to Peru, in 1568, of the wealth and fertility of the newly-found lands, cast a glamour of romance over the scene of their discoveries which the lapse of three hundred years has not been able altogether to remove.

To colonize his new discovery and add one more to the vast possessions of Spain, became the life-long ambition of Mendana. In order to further his great aim, he gave to these islands the name of the “Isles of Salomon,” to the end that the Spaniards, supposing them to be the islands whence Solomon obtained his gold for the temple at Jerusalem, might be induced to go and inhabit them. Thus, the name of the new discovery was itself a “pious fraud,” if we may believe the story of Lopez Vaz,[333] a Portuguese, who was captured by the English, nearly twenty years afterwards, at the River Plate. This seems to me to be the explanation of the name, which we ought, in fairness, to receive; since, after reading the narrative of Gallego, it is scarcely crediting the Spaniards with ordinary reasoning faculties to imagine that Mendana and his officers really thought that they had found the Ophir of Solomon.

However, many years rolled by; and Mendana had arrived at an elderly age before any further undertaking was attempted. The appearance of Drake in the South Sea, some years after the return of the expedition to Peru, caused the scheme of colonization to be abandoned. The Spaniards now found a rival in the navigation of that ocean which, under the sanction of a Papal decree, they had hitherto regarded as exclusively their own. The dread that they would be unable to hold the “Isles of Salomon” against the attacks of the powerful nation now intruding in their domain, caused them to relinquish the coveted islands; and “commandement was given, that they should not be inhabited, to the end that such Englishmen, and of other Nations as passed the Straits of Magellan to go to the Malucos (Moluccas), might have no succour there, but such as they got of the Indian people.”[334] To prevent the English obtaining any knowledge of these islands, the publication of the official narrative of Mendana’s voyage was purposely delayed. So strong a pressure was brought to bear upon Gallego, the Chief-Pilot of the expedition,[335] that he was afraid to publish his journal, which has not only remained in manuscript up to the present day, but was not brought to light until the second quarter of the present century. Thus, it happened that for nearly half-a-century after the return of Mendana, there was no account of the expedition:[336] no chart preserved its discoveries, it being considered better, as things were then, to let these islands remain unknown.[337]

The popular ignorance of these islands naturally increased the mystery that surrounded them; and their wealth and resources were soon increased ten-fold under the influence of the imaginative faculties of the Spaniards. Lopez Vaz, the Portuguese already referred to, writing about the year 1586 of the recent American discoveries, remarked that “the greatest and most notable discovery that hath beene from those parts now of late, was that of the Isles of Salomon.” But romance and fact are strangely mingled in his story. We learn from him, for the first time, that the Spaniards, although “not seeking nor being desirous of gold,” brought back with them, from the island of Guadalcanar, 40,000 pezos[338] of the precious metal. No reference is made to such a find of gold on the part of the Spaniards in the accounts of Gallego and Figueroa: and it is probable that the reports to this effect may have originally arisen out of the circumstance that, when the ships were being refitted and provisioned at the port of Realejo, on the Nicaraguan coast, for the completion of their voyage to Peru, the necessary expenses, which amounted to 1800 pezos, were defrayed by the Chief-Pilot, Gallego.[339]

If the English captain, Withrington by name, who elicited this information from his Portuguese prisoner, Lopez Vaz, had hoped to have obtained any satisfactory account of the position of these vaunted islands, he must have been grievously disappointed. He learned from him that the Spaniards, having coasted along the island of Guadalcanar until the parallel of 18° S. latitude without reaching its extremity, were of the opinion that it formed “part of that continent which stretches to the strait of Magalhanes” (Magellan). From this misconception, the idea arose that the Spaniards had discovered the southern continent and that Gallego was the discoverer,[340] and so vague was the information of the extent of the newly-discovered islands that, when in 1599, an English ship was carried by tempest to 64° S. lat., the captain, on sighting some mountainous land covered with snow, considered that it extended towards the islands of Salomon.[341]

But to return to the long-deferred project of Mendana. Years of delay seemed only to increase the desire of the first discoverer of this group to complete his work. A change occurred in the vice-royalty of Peru; and under the auspices of the new Viceroy an expedition of four ships was fitted out, on which were embarked sailors, soldiers, and emigrants to the total number of four hundred. In 1595, more than a quarter of a century after the return of his first expedition, Mendana, now an elderly man, sailed from Peru accompanied by his wife, Donna Isabella Baretto. Fernandez de Quiros, who had braved with his leader the perils of the first voyage and had shared with him in the disheartenings arising from a hope so long deferred, now served under him as chief pilot. Their destination was St. Christoval, the easternmost of the Solomon Group. The imperfect knowledge of the navigator of those days was curiously exhibited during this voyage. With the means at his command, it was a comparatively easy matter to follow along one parallel of latitude or “to run down his latitude” as the sailor terms it; but to ascertain with any approach to accuracy his meridian of longitude was scarcely within the power of the Spanish navigator. When only about half-way across the Pacific and about the same distance on their voyage to the Solomon Group, they discovered a group of islands, which, from their latitude, they believed to be the object of their quest. Further exploration, however, convinced Mendana of his mistake; and he named his new discovery Las Marquesas de Mendoza, a name which this group at present in part retains. On continuing the voyage, the crews were assured that in three or four days they would arrive at the “Isles of Salomon,” which were in point of fact more than three thousand miles away. The three or four days wearily spun themselves out into thirty-three. General discontent became rife; and murmurs of dissatisfaction arose which might have shortly ended in open revolt. At length, late one night they were overtaken by one of the rain-storms so common in those regions; and when the clouds lifted, they saw within a league of them the shores of a large island. The discovery was signalled from the flag-ship, the “Capitana,” to the other three ships: but only two replied. The missing vessel, the “Almiranta,” had been last seen between two and three hours before. No trace was ever found of her. Whither she went, or what fate befell her, are questions which have remained amongst the many unsolved mysteries of the sea. There is something tragical in this disappearance of a large ship having probably over a hundred souls on board, men, women, and children, when apparently the goal of the expedition had been attained.

The appearance of the natives of this large island at first induced Mendana to believe that he had at last arrived at the lands he had been so long seeking. But his belief was short-lived. The new island was named Santa Cruz; and having abandoned the original object of the expedition to establish a colony on the island of St. Christoval, the Spaniards commenced to plant their colony on the shores of a harbour which they named Graciosa Bay. Disaster upon disaster fell on the little colony. Disease struck down numbers of the settlers, and the poisoned weapons of the natives ended the lives of many others. Mutiny broke out; and the extreme punishment of death was inflicted on the conspirators. The foul murder of the chief who had steadfastly befriended them was punished, it is true, by the execution of the murderers; but the enmity of the natives could not thus be pacified. Broken-hearted and overcome by disease, Mendana sickened and died; and the heavens themselves must have seemed to the superstitious Spaniards to have frowned on their design, for a total eclipse of the moon preceded by a few hours the death of their commander. The brother of Donna Isabel had been selected by Mendana as his successor; but a fortnight afterwards he died from a wound received in an affray with the natives. It was at length resolved to abandon the enterprise; and rather over two months after they had first sighted the island, the survivors of the expedition re-embarked for Manilla. Hoping to learn something of the missing ship before finally steering northward, they directed their course westward until they should reach the parallel of 11° of south latitude, when they expected to arrive at St. Christoval whither the “Almiranta” might have gone. The course[342] which they steered under the guidance of Quiros, the pilot, must have soon brought them on this parallel; and they appear to have followed it with a favourable wind until the second day,[343] when seeing no signs of land, they were urged by the increasing sickness and by the scarcity of water and provisions to give up the search, and to this change of plans Quiros gave his consent. In a few hours, if they had continued their course, the mountain-tops of St Christoval would have appeared above the horizon and the “Isles of Salomon” would have been found. But such was not to be; and when probably not more than fifty miles from the original destination of the expedition, the ships were headed N.N.W. for Manilla. Such a course must have brought the Spanish vessels yet closer to the eastern extremity of the group; but the night fell, and on the following morning the Solomon Islands were well below the western horizon. Of the three ships, two only reached the Philippines. The “Fragata” lost the company of the other ships and “never more appeared.” It was subsequently reported that she had been found driven ashore with all her sails set and all her people dead and rotten.[344]

Thus terminated the attempt of the Spaniards to found a colony in the Solomon Islands; and the ill fate which it experienced was scarcely calculated to encourage others to undertake a similar enterprise. Barely half of the four hundred souls who had left Peru under such bright auspices could have reached the Philippines. Among them, however, was Quiros the pilot of Mendana, who, nothing daunted by disaster and ill-success, returned to Peru and endeavoured to re-awaken the spirit of discovery which was losing much of its enthusiasm with the departing glory of the Spanish nation. The Viceroy of Peru referred him to the Court of Spain; and, after experiencing for several years the effects of those intrigues which seem to have been the accustomed fate of the early navigators, Quiros set sail from Callao at the close of 1605, to search the Southern Ocean once again for the Isles of Salomon and the other unknown lands in that region. He had been supplied with two ships, and was accompanied by Luis Vaez de Torres as second in command. It is unnecessary to enter here into the particulars of the voyage across the Pacific. It will be sufficient for my purpose to state that Quiros finally sought the parallel of 10° south, and sailed westward in the direction of Santa Cruz, which he had discovered with Mendana ten years before. Being rather to the northward of the latitude of Santa Cruz, he struck a small group of islands, the principal of which was called Taumaco by the natives. These islands have been identified with the Duff Group, which lies about 65 miles north-east of Santa Cruz. Nearly two centuries had passed away before these islands were again seen by Europeans, when they were sighted by Captain Wilson of the missionary ship “Duff,” in 1797. During the ten days spent by the Spaniards at Taumaco, Quiros obtained information of a number of islands and large tracts of land in the neighbourhood, which seemed to confirm him in his belief in a vast unknown extent of land in the Southern Ocean. The list of these islands are included in a memorial[345] subsequently presented by Quiros to Philip II. of Spain, which contains many particulars of the discoveries of the expedition in this region. Some of them I have been able to identify with names on existing charts, but referring my reader to Note XIV. of the Geographical Appendix, I will only allude here to the most interesting reference in this memorial, which is to a large country named Pouro, that is without doubt the large island of St. Christoval in the Solomon Group, which lay rather under 300 miles to the westward. The central portion of St. Christoval is at present called Bauro, and by this name the whole island is often known to the natives of the islands around. Thus, without suspecting it, Quiros had described to him an island of the lost Solomon Group, and the very island which had been more completely explored than any other by the expedition of Mendana nearly forty years before. Had he been in possession of Gallego’s journal, in which the native name of Paubro is given to St. Christoval, he would have at once recognised in this Pouro of the Taumaco natives the Paubro of Mendana’s expedition. His informant spoke to him of silver arrows which had been brought from Pouro, but this circumstance did not set him on the right track; and thus for the second time this enterprising navigator unwittingly let the chance pass by of finding the Isles of Salomon.[346]

The opportunity had gone; and, for this reason, the remainder of this voyage of Quiros has no interest in connection with the Solomon Group. The information which he had obtained of the numerous islands and tracts of land in the vicinity of Taumaco seems to have banished from his mind all thoughts of the missing group. Steering southward, and passing without seeing the island of Santa Cruz of which he had been in search, he reached the island of Tucopia, of which he had previously obtained information from the natives of Taumaco. Continuing his course, he finally anchored in a large bay which indented the coast of what he believed was the Great Southern Continent. The name Australia del Espiritu Santo was given by him to this new land, when flushed with the success of his discovery. In the hour of his supposed triumph, fortune again frowned on the efforts of the Spanish navigator. A mutiny broke out on board his ship, and Quiros was compelled by his crew to abandon the enterprise. Without being able to acquaint Torres of what had happened, he left the anchorage unperceived in the middle hours of the night, and after making an ineffectual attempt to find Santa Cruz, he sailed for Mexico. Torres, after ascertaining that the supposed southern continent was an island,[347] continued his voyage westward, and, passing through the straits which bear his name, ultimately arrived at Manilla.

The results of the expeditions in which Quiros had been engaged could hardly have been looked upon with feelings of great satisfaction at the Spanish Court, where the veteran navigator in the true spirit of Columbus now repaired to advocate the colonization of the Australia del Espiritu Santo he had just discovered. The Isles of Salomon had been also discovered, it is true; but two succeeding expeditions had failed to find them. Santa Cruz had similarly eluded the efforts of Quiros; and his last discovery of the supposed southern continent had been proved by his companion, Torres, to be an island. Several years had passed away, and Quiros was an old man before his wishes for a new expedition were granted. In furtherance of the exploration of the Isles of Salomon and the Australia del Espiritu Santo, he is said to have presented no less than fifty memorials to the king; in one of which, after painting in the brightest colours the beauty and fertility of his last discovery, he thus addresses his Sovereign: “Acquire, sire, since you can, acquire heaven, eternal fame, and that new world with all its promises.” Such appeals coming from one who might fitly be called the Columbus of his age could scarcely be rejected by the monarch. In 1614, Quiros, bearing a commission from the king, departed from Spain on his way to Callao, where he intended to fit out another expedition. Death, however, overtook him at Panama on his way to Peru; and with Quiros died all the grand hopes, which he had fostered, of adding the unknown southern continent to the dominion of Spain. Had he lived to carry out his project, Australia might have become a second Peru. The spirit of enterprise on the part of the Spanish nation never again extended itself into this region of the Western Pacific. During the next century and a half the large island-groups, which the Spaniards had discovered in these seas, were not visited by any European navigators;[348] and it is surprising how few benefits have accrued to geography from these three Spanish expeditions to these regions. Their discoveries have had to be rediscovered; and it has been only by a laborious process on the part of the geographer that the navigator has been able to make any use of the imperfect information, which the Spanish navigators have bequeathed to us of their discoveries in these seas.

The death of Quiros deepened more than ever the mystery that was thrown over the Isles of Salomon. Although Herrera[349] had published in 1601 a short description of these islands, which he must have derived from official sources, no account of the first voyage of Mendana was published until nearly half a century after the return of the expedition to Peru, when in 1613 a short narrative appeared in a work written by Dr. Figueroa.[350] However, the exaggerated description, such as Lopez Vaz had given, obtained by virtue of prepossession a stronger hold on the memories of the sea-faring world. The same spirit of jealousy against other nations, which had compelled Gallego to suppress his journals, and had so long withheld any account of Mendana’s discoveries, now doomed to destruction the several memorials and documents of Quiros; but fortunately the work of destruction was not completed. The consequence of such proceedings was to greatly heighten the exaggerated misconceptions relating to the Isles of Salomon. We learn from Purchas[351] that Richard Hakluyt was informed in London in 1604, by a Lisbon merchant, of an expedition which had left Lima in 1600 and had fallen in “with divers rich countries and islands not far from the islands of Salomon. One chief place they called Monte de Plata, for the great abundance of silver there is like to be there. For they found two crowns’ worth of silver in two handfuls of dust, and the people gave them for iron as much and more in quantity of silver.”[352] Amongst the misconceptions which prevailed is one which we find in a memorial addressed by Dr. Juan Luis Arias to Philip III. of Spain,[353] where he refers to the discovery of “New Guadalcanal” and “San Christoval” as quite distinct from Mendana’s subsequent discovery, as he alleges, of the Isles of Salomon; and he alludes to the opinion of some that New Guadalcanal was a part of New Guinea. In Peru the actual existence of these islands came to be doubted; and successive viceroys held it a political maxim to treat the question of the existence of the Solomon Islands as a romance.[354]

The jealous attitude, assumed by Spain towards other nations with reference to these discoveries, succeeded only too well in bewildering the geographers who endeavoured to ascertain the true position of the Solomon Islands; and so varied were the opinions on the subject, that the latitude assigned to them varied from 7° to 19° south, and the longitude from 2400 miles to 7500 miles west of Peru. Acosta, in 1590, ignorant of the materials several years after placed at the disposal of Figueroa, located these islands about 800 leagues[355] west of Peru, and Herrera gives them the same position,[356] a longitude which Lopez Vaz had previously given them in the account obtained from him in 1586 by Captain Withrington. The discoverers themselves, if we may trust the estimates given in the accounts of Gallego and Figueroa, and in the memorials of Quiros, considered that the Solomon Islands were removed about double this distance from the coast of Peru. Their estimates vary between 1500 and 1700 Spanish leagues, whereas the true distance is about 2100 leagues or from 1500 to 2000 miles west of the position assigned by the discoverers. In his second voyage, Mendana was misled by this small estimate when he at first mistook the Marquesas for his previous discovery, the Isles of Salomon. I am inclined to consider that the Spanish navigators purposely under-estimated the distance of these islands from the coast of Peru, and that in so doing they were actuated by two motives. In the first place, they would be desirous to bring their discoveries within the line of demarcation fixed by the Papal Bull after the discovery of America by Columbus, by which the hemisphere west of a meridian 370 leagues west of the Azores was assigned to Spain, and that to the east of this meridian to Portugal. Thus it was that Spain had had to deliver the Brazils to Portugal; and in possessing herself of the Moluccas she had appropriated by a geographical fraud lands which should have belonged to that nation.[357] Their other motive is probably to be found in that jealousy of spirit which, in order to prevent Drake and the English from finding their discoveries, caused the suppression of Gallego’s journal and the burning of many of the memorials of Quiros.

Similar confusion prevailed amongst the early cartographers as to the position which they should assign to the Solomon Islands. As M. Buache[358] points out, the first charts representing the Isles of Salomon, which were published at the end of the 16th century, made a near approximation to their true position by placing them to the east and at no great distance from New Guinea. Subsequent cartographers, however, were less happy in their guesses at the truth. In the “Arcano del Mare,” published by Dudley, in 1646, the Solomon Islands were transported to the position of the Marquesas, with which they were thought identical. This position was generally received until early in last century, when Delisle adopted a position much nearer to that given in the early maps. M. Danville, however, later on in the century, being unable to reconcile the Spanish discoveries with the more recent discoveries in the South Seas, suppressed altogether the Isles of Salomon in his map of the world; and his example was followed by several other geographers, who were equally anxious to expunge the lost archipelago from their maps and to relegate it to the class of fabulous lands.

After the death of Quiros, the Spanish nation ceased to favour any further enterprise in search of the missing archipelagos, which do not appear to have engaged the special attention of any nation. Generations thus passed away, and the Solomon Islands were almost forgotten. But there lingered amongst the sea-faring population in Peru, memories of the missing islands of Mendana and Quiros, which were revived from time to time by some strange story told by men, who had returned to Callao from their voyage across the Pacific to Manilla. Even in the first quarter of last century, the mention of the Isles of Salomon suggested visions of beautiful and fertile lands, abounding in mineral wealth, and populated by a happy race of people who enjoyed a climate of perfect salubrity. This we learn from the narrative of Captain Betagh,[359] an Englishman, who, having been captured by the Spaniards in 1720, was detained a prisoner in Peru. He speaks of the arrival, not long before, of two ships at Callao, which, though cruising independently in the Pacific, had both been driven out of their course and had made the Solomon Islands. A small ship was despatched to follow up their discovery: but as she was only victualled for two months, I need scarcely add that she did not find them. It is very probable that the islands made by the two ships were the Marquesas.

Not very long after this attempt to find the missing group, Admiral Roggewein,[360] the Dutch navigator, in his voyage round the world, sighted, in 1722, two large islands or tracts of land in the Western Pacific, which he named Tienhoven and Groningen (the Groningue of some writers). Behrens, the narrator of the expedition, considered them to be portions of the Terra Australis. Geographers, however, have differed widely in their attempts to identify these islands. Dalrymple and Burney held the opinion that these islands were none other than the Solomon Islands; but the question is of little importance to us, as no communication took place with the natives.

In his “Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes,” which was published in Paris, in 1756, De Brosses, after referring to the circumstance that geographers differed a thousand leagues in locating this group, inserts, as giving quite another idea of their position, the story of Gemelli Careri, when on his voyage from Manilla to Mexico, in command of the great galleon. It appears that when they were in 34° north lat., a canary flew on board and perched in the rigging. Careri at once inferred that the bird must have flown from the Solomon Islands, which lay, as he learned from the seamen of his vessel, two degrees further south. The source of the Spanish commander’s information might have suggested some rather odd reflections: however, De Brosses, as if to justify this belief of the sailors of the galleon, refers to two islands, Kinsima (Isle of Gold) and Ginsima (Isle of Silver), lying about 300 leagues east of Japan, which, having been kept secret by the Japanese, had been ineffectually sought for by the Dutch in 1639 and 1643.[361] De Brosses, it should be remembered, was writing when the Isles of Salomon were in the minds of many a myth. That this notion of the seamen of the galleon should suggest to him two legendary islands placed east of Japan, islands believed by the Dutch not to belie their names in mineral wealth, sufficiently shows how wild speculation had become with reference to the position of this mysterious group.

In a few years, however, there was a revival of the spirit of geographical enterprise in England, under the enlightened auspices of George III.; and the time was approaching when, in anticipation of the transit of Venus in 1769, the attention of the English and French astronomers and geographers was more specially directed to the South Pacific, with the purpose of selecting suitable positions for the observation of this phenomenon. M. Pingré, in his memoir on the selection of a position for observing the transit of Venus, which was read before the French Academy of Sciences in December, 1766, and January, 1767, gave a translation of the account given by Figueroa of Mendana’s discovery of the Solomon Islands; but he did not throw much new light on their supposed position.

Whilst the attention of geographers was thus once more directed towards this part of the Pacific, the two English voyages of circumnavigation under Commodore Byron and Captain Carteret[362] supplied them with information, which pointed to the correctness of the view of the old cartographers that the Solomon Islands lay to the east, and not far removed from New Guinea. That Commodore Byron, when sailing in the supposed latitude of these islands in 1765, expected to fall in with them more towards the centre of the Pacific, is shown by the circumstance that he at first believed one of the islands of the group, subsequently named the Union Group, to be the Malaita of the Spaniards, an island which actually lay more than 1500 miles to the westward. However, he continued his course in the track of the missing group, until he reached the longitude of 176° 20′ E. in latitude 8° 13′ S., a position more than 800 miles to the eastward of that assigned to the Solomon Islands in his chart. Giving up the search, Commodore Byron steered northward to cross the equator, and ultimately shaped his course for the Ladrones. His remark in reference to his want of success augured ill for the future discovery of the Solomon Group, since he doubted whether the Spaniards had left behind any account by which it might be found by future navigators.

In August, 1766, another expedition consisting of two ships, the “Dolphin,” and the “Swallow,” under the command of Captain Wallis, and Captain Carteret, sailed from Plymouth with the object of making further discoveries in the southern hemisphere. After a stormy passage through the Straits of Magellan, the two ships were separated just as they were entering the South Sea. This accidental circumstance proved fortunate in its results for geographical science, as each vessel steered an independent course. Whilst Captain Wallis in the “Dolphin” was exploring the coasts of Tahiti, Captain Carteret in the “Swallow” followed a track more to the southward, and ultimately brought back to Europe tidings of the long lost lands of Mendana and Quiros. In July, 1767, Captain Carteret being in 167° W. long, and 10° S. lat., kept his course westward in the same parallel “in hopes”—as he remarks—“to have fallen in with some of the islands called Solomon’s Islands.” After reaching the meridian of 177° 30′ E. long. in 10° 18′ S. lat., a position five degrees to the westward of that assigned to the Solomon Islands in his chart, Captain Carteret came to the conclusion “that if there were any such islands their situation was erroneously laid down.” He was afterwards destined to discover, unknown to himself, nearly a thousand miles to the westward, the very group whose existence he doubted. Continuing his westerly course, he arrived at a group of islands, the largest of which he recognised as the Santa Cruz of Mendana, which had not been visited by Europeans since the disastrous attempt to found a Spanish Colony there more than 170 years before. With a crazy ship, and a sickly crew, Captain Carteret desisted from the further prosecution of his discoveries in those regions; and shaping his course W.N.W., he sighted in the evening of the second day a low flat island, one of the outlying islands of the Solomon Group, which, without suspecting the nature of his discovery, he called Gower Island, a name still preserved in the present chart.[363] During the night, the current carried him to the south, and brought him within sight of what he thought were two other large islands lying east and west with each other, which he named Simpson’s Island, and Carteret’s Island. Captain Carteret communicated with the natives, but did not anchor. These two islands have proved to be the forked northern extremity of the large island of Malaita. Keeping to the north-west, he subsequently discovered, off the north-west end of the group, a large atoll with nine small islands, which are known as the Nine Islands of Carteret. On the following morning he was fated, without being aware of it, to get another glimpse of the Solomon Islands. A high island, descried by him to the southward, which is named Winchelsea Island in his text, and Anson Island in his chart of the voyage, was in all probability the island of Bouka visited nearly a year afterwards by Bougainville, the French navigator. Thus the missing group was at length found, but without the knowledge of the English navigator who discovered it. He had, in truth, expected to find it 20° further to the east. It was reserved, however, for the geographer in his study to identify the discoveries of Carteret with the Isles of Salomon of Mendana.

At the end of June, 1768, Bougainville the French navigator,[364] coming northward from his discovery of the Louisiade Archipelago and of the Australia del Espiritu Santo of Quiros, made the west coast of a large island, now known as Choiseul Island, one of the Solomon Islands. When the ships were about twenty miles south of the present Choiseul Bay, boats were sent to look for an anchorage, but they found the coast almost inaccessible. A second attempt was made to find an anchorage in Choiseul Bay, but, night coming on, the number of the shoals and the irregularity of the currents prevented the ships from coming up to the anchorage. In this bay the boats were attacked by about 150 natives in ten canoes who were dispersed and routed by the second discharge of fire-arms. Two canoes were captured, in one of which was found the jaw of a man half broiled. The island was named Choiseul by its discoverer, and a river from which the natives had issued into the bay was called “la riviere des Guerriers.” Passing through the strait which bears his name, the French navigator coasted along the east side of Bougainville Island, and passed off the island of Bouka. The natives who came off to the ship in their canoes displayed the cocoa-nuts they had brought with them, and constantly repeated the cry, “bouca, bouca, onellé.” For this reason, Bougainville named the island, Bouca, which is the name it still retains on the chart. It is, however, evident from the narrative that the French navigator never regarded this name as that by which the island was known to its inhabitants. When Dentrecasteaux, during his voyage in search of La Pérouse, lay off this island in his ships in 1792, the natives who came off from the shore, as Labillardière informs us,[365] made use of the same expression of “bouka.” This eminent naturalist considered that the word in question was a term in the language of these islanders; and he refers to it as a Malay expression of negation, except when a pause is made on the first syllable when it signifies “to open.” On leaving behind him the island of Bouka, Bougainville quitted the Solomon Group; but from his account it is apparent that he had no idea of having found the missing archipelago. Referring to these islands in the introduction to his narrative, he writes:—“supposing that the details related of the wealth of these islands are not fabulous, we are in ignorance of their situation, and subsequent attempts to find them have been in vain. It merely appears that they do not lie between the eighth and twelfth parallels of south latitude.” In Bougainville’s plans and charts, these discoveries are referred to as forming part of the Louisiade Archipelago which he had found to the southward. In the general chart showing the track of his voyage, the Solomon Islands are placed about 350 miles north-west of the Navigator Islands; and they are there referred to as “Isles Salomon dont l’existence et la position sont douteuse.”

In June of the following year, 1769, there sailed from Pondicherry an expedition commanded by M. de Surville,[366] who was bound on some enterprise with the object of which we are still to a great extent unacquainted. It is, however, probable as we learn from Abbé Rochon,[367] that some rumour of an island abounding in wealth and inhabited by Jews, which was reported to have been lately seen by the English seven hundred leagues west of Peru, had led to the fitting out of this expedition. Not unlikely, stories of the wealth of the missing islands of Mendana had been revived by the arrival in India of some ship that had come upon them in her track across the Pacific; and the reference to their being populated by Jews may be readily understood when I allude to the fact that the form of the nose in one out of every five Solomon Islanders, and in truth in many Papuans, gives the face quite a Jewish cast. In October, 1769, Surville discovered and named Port Praslin on the north-east coast of Isabel, which was the same island of the Solomon Group that Mendana had first discovered two hundred years before. Here he stayed eight days, during which time his watering-parties came into lamentable conflict with the natives. Sailing eastward from Port Praslin, he sighted the Gower Island of Carteret, which he named Inattendue Island. Subsequently he reached Ulaua, which he called, on account of the unfavourable weather which he experienced in its vicinity, Ile de Contrarieté. The attempt to send a boat ashore was the occasion of another unfortunate affray with the natives, who were ultimately dispersed with grape-shot. It will be remembered that just two centuries before, the Spaniards in the brigantine came into conflict with these same islanders, and that they named their island La Treguada in consequence of their supposed treachery (vide anteâ). In the neighbourhood of Contrarieté, Surville sighted three small islands, which he named Les Trois Sœurs (Las Tres Marias of the Spaniards), and near them another island, which he called Ile du Golfe, the Ugi or Gulf Island of the present chart. Sailing eastward, he apprehended from the trend of the neighbouring St. Christoval coast that he would become embayed; but his apprehensions were removed when he arrived at the extremity of this land, which he named Cape Oriental, and the two off-lying small islands of Santa Anna and Santa Catalina were called Iles de la Délivrance in token of the danger from which he had apparently been delivered. In total ignorance of the fact that he had been cruising amongst the islands of the lost archipelago of Mendana, Surville now directed his course for New Zealand; and on account of sanguinary conflicts with the natives of Port Praslin and Contrarieté, he named his discoveries Terre des Arsacides or Land of the Assassins.

In 1781, Maurelle, the Spanish navigator, in command of the frigate “Princesa,” during his voyage from Manilla to San Blas on the west coast of Mexico,[368] came upon the Candelaria Shoals of Mendana, which lie off the north coast of Isabel Island. I have shown on page 200 that these Candelaria Shoals are no other than the Ontong Java of Tasman, which was identified by M. Fleurieu[369] with the discovery of Maurelle. To the south-east of these shoals the “Princesa” approached another, which on account of the roaring of the sea was named El Roncador: this has been erroneously identified with the Candelaria Shoals by M. Fleurieu, and it is so named on the present Admiralty charts. Thus it nearly fell to the lot of the Spanish nation to be amongst the first to find the group they had originally discovered; but Maurelle was not acquainted with his vicinity to the missing Isles of Salomon, and turning the head of his ship eastward, he proceeded on his voyage.

In July, 1788, Lieutenant Shortland, when returning to England from Port Jackson in convoy of a fleet of transports, made the Solomon Group near Cape Sydney on the south coast of St. Christoval. He skirted the south side of the group until he arrived at Bougainville Straits, and received the impression that he was coasting along an apparently continuous tract of land, to which he gave the name of New Georgia. Passing through Bougainville Straits, which, in ignorance of the discoveries of the French navigator, he named after himself, Lieutenant Shortland continued on his voyage. The names of the numerous headlands[370] on the south side of the Solomon Group, bear witness in the present chart to the accurate observations of the English navigator: and from him Mount Lammas, the highest peak of Guadalcanar, received its name. Like Bougainville and Surville, Shortland was not acquainted with the nature of his discoveries.[371]

It now remained for the geographers to avail themselves of the materials placed at their disposal by the voyages of the French and English navigators. M. Buache in a “Memoir on the Existence and Situation of Solomon’s Islands,”[372] which was presented to the French Academy of Sciences in 1781, deals with the discoveries of Carteret, Bougainville, and Surville. The steps by which he arrived at the conclusion that the groups of islands discovered by these navigators were not only one and the same group, but that they were the long-lost Isles of Salomon of Mendana, afford an instructive instance of how a patient and laborious investigator, endowed with that gift of discrimination which M. Buache employed with such laudable impartiality, may ultimately attain the truth he seeks, invested though it be in clouds of mystery and contradiction. Groping along through a maze of conflicting statements, to which both navigators and geographers had in equal share contributed, M. Buache finally emerged into the light of day, when he asserted in his memoir that between the extreme point of New Guinea as fixed by Bougainville and the position of Santa Cruz as determined by Carteret, there was a space of 12¹⁄₂ degrees of longitude, in which the Islands of Solomon ought to be found. In this space, as he proceeded to show, lay the large group discovered by Bougainville and Surville which, he with confidence asserted, would prove to be none other than the long-lost islands of the Solomon Group.

But such a view of the character of the recent French discoveries in these seas was received by English geographers with that spirit of partiality from which the cause of geographical science has so frequently suffered. Mr. Dalrymple in his “Historical Collection of Voyages,” published in 1770, before he had become acquainted with the discoveries of Carteret, Bougainville, and Surville, stated his conviction that there was no room to doubt that what Mendana called Salomon Islands in 1567, Dampier afterwards named New Britain in 1700. In the introduction to the narrative of his second voyage round the world, when he followed up Bougainville’s exploration of the Australia del Espiritu Santo of Quiros,[373] Captain Cook supported this view. The arguments, however, of M. Buache had no weight with Mr. Dalrymple, who in 1790 re-stated his opinion that the Solomon Islands of the Spaniards and the New Britain of Dampier were one and the same, and he referred to the discoveries of Bougainville and Surville as showing no similitude in form to the Solomon Islands of the old maps.[374]

But in the minds of French geographers there was little doubt as to the correctness of the views of M. Buache. Amongst the detailed geographical instructions given by Louis XVI. in 1785 to La Pérouse, when he was setting out on his ill-fated expedition, was one which directed the attention of this illustrious navigator to the examination of the numerous islands of the Solomon Group, and especially to those which lay between Guadalcanar and Malaita.[375] It was considered almost indubitable, as M. Fleurieu informs us, that the intended exploration by La Pérouse of this archipelago would convert probability into certainty. But when in the vicinity of the islands he was never destined to behold, La Pérouse experienced that mysterious fate which has excited sympathy throughout the civilised world. On the reef-girt shores of Vanicoro his ships were wrecked, and the French commander and his men were never seen again by any Europeans. As Carlyle wrote, . . . “The brave navigator goes, and returns not; the seekers search far seas for him in vain, . . . . and only some mournful mysterious shadow of him hovers long in all heads and hearts.”[376]

The ominous silence that had fallen over the doings of the absent expedition, on account of the non-arrival of the long expected dispatches, must have been, in a double sense, a cause of disappointment to M. Fleurieu, who had hoped to demonstrate the correctness of the views of the French geographers by the results of the explorations of La Pérouse. It was with the object of showing that the New Georgia of Shortland was one and the same with the Terre des Arsacides of Surville and the Choiseul of Bougainville, and that the French and English navigators had independently of each other discovered the lost Solomon Group, that M. Fleurieu published in Paris in 1790 his “Découvertes des François en 1768 et 1769 dans le sud-est de la Nouvelle Guinée.”[377] “The desire of restoring to the French nation its own discoveries, which an emulous and jealous neighbour has endeavoured to appropriate to herself, induced us,” thus the author wrote in his preface to his work, “to connect in one view, all those that we have made towards the south-east of New Guinea; and particularly to prove, that the great land, which Shortland imagined he discovered in 1788, and to which he gave the name of New Georgia, is not a new land, but the southern coast of the Archipelago of the Arsacides, the famous Islands of Solomon, one part of which was discovered after two centuries by M. de Bougainville in 1768, and another more considerable by M. de Surville in 1769.” I need not refer to the detailed arguments of this learned geographical writer. Under his arguments, Surville’s appellation of Terre des Arsacides and Shortland’s of New Georgia,[378] finally gave place to the original title given by the Spanish navigator. “It was the work of M. de Fleurieu,” thus writes Krusenstern,[379] the Russian voyager and hydrographer, “that removed once and for all any doubt that might have been held about the identity of the discoveries of Bougainville, Surville, and Shortland, with the Solomon Islands.” Another illustrious navigator, Dumont D’Urville,[380] thus alludes to the successful labours of his countrymen, . . . “Le laborieux Buache et l’habile Fleurieu travaillèrent tour à tour à établir cette identité qui, depuis, est devenue un fait acquis à la science géographique; les îles relevées par Surville et par Bougainville sont réellement l’archipel Salomon de Mindana.” Thus the lost archipelago was found, not so much by the fortuitous course of the navigator as by the patient investigations of the geographer in his study. The result is intrinsically of little importance to the world at large; but, as an example of the success of a laborious yet discriminate research, it may afford encouragement to all who endeavour to add something to the sum of knowledge.

I will now refer briefly to the voyagers who subsequently visited this group, after its identity had become established. In May 1790, Lieutenant Ball,[381] in the “Supply,” when on his voyage to England from Port Jackson via Batavia, made the eastern extremity of the Solomon Islands. He sailed along the north side of the group until opposite the middle of Malaita, when he headed more to the eastward and clear of the land. He correctly surmised that he was sailing along the New Georgia of Shortland, but on the opposite side of it: though he looked upon the islands of Santa Anna, Santa Catalina, and Ulaua as his own discoveries, and he named them respectively Sirius’s Island, Massey’s Island, and Smith’s Island. In December 1791, Captain Bowen of the ship “Albemarle,” during his voyage from Port Jackson to Bombay, sailed along the coast of New Georgia, and reported that he had seen the floating wreck of one of the vessels of La Pérouse; but this report was discredited by Captain Dillon in the narrative of his search after the missing expedition.[382] In 1792, Captain Manning,[383] of the Honourable East India Company’s Service, during his voyage from Port Jackson to Batavia in the ship “Pitt,” made the south coast of the Solomon Group off Cape Sidney, which was the headland first sighted by Lieutenant Shortland. Sailing westward, he imagined St. Christoval and Guadalcanar were continuous, and he thus delineates their coasts in his track-chart much as Shortland did. The Russell Islands he named Macaulay’s Archipelago, a name which ought to be retained as a compliment to their discoverer. He then passed between Rubiana and Isabel, naming the high land of the latter island Keate’s Mountains. Passing through the strait between Choiseul and Isabel, which bears his name, Captain Manning proceeded northward on his voyage.

At this time, a French expedition, under Admiral Dentrecasteaux, was cruising in the same part of the Pacific with the object of ascertaining the fate of La Pérouse. Amongst the instructions embodied in a “Mémoire du Roi,” which were given to the French admiral, was the following one referring to the Solomon Islands: . . “Qu’il s’occupe à détailler cet archipel, dont il est d’autant plus intéressant d’acquérir une connoissance parfaite, qu’on peut avec raison le regarder comme une découverte des François, puisqu’il étoit resté ignoré et inconnu pendant les deux siècles qui s’étoient écoulés depuis que les Espagnols en avoient fait la première decouverte.”[384] In July 1792, when on his way from New Caledonia to Carteret Harbour in New Ireland, in prosecution of his search for the missing expedition, Dentrecasteaux made the Eddystone Rock which had been thus named by Shortland, and passing by Treasury Island, he skirted the west coast of Bougainville and Bouka. In May of the following year, when on the passage from Santa Cruz to the Louisiade Archipelago, the expedition sailed along the south coast of the Solomon Islands as far as Rubiana. Passing between St. Christoval and Guadalcanar, Dentrecasteaux sailed close to the island of Contrarieté and communicated with the natives. Whilst one of his ships lay off the north-west part of St. Christoval, the natives of Gulf Island (Ugi) discharged a flight of arrows from their canoes and wounded one of the crew. It is satisfactory to learn that her commander contented himself with firing a musket and discharging a rocket at them without effect, and that no other retaliatory measures were taken to intercept them in their flight. Turning back on his course, the French admiral was almost tempted to explore the group of islands between Guadalcanar and Malaita, to which the work of Fleurieu had directed his attention, and had he done so, he would have cleared up the confusion with which the vague description of Figueroa has surrounded these islands; but his instructions and the object of his voyage led him along the south coast of Guadalcanar on his way to the Louisiade Archipelago.

To the voyagers who visited this group during the first half of the present century, I can only briefly allude. The Solomon Islands were seldom visited during the early portion of it, except, perhaps, by occasional trading-ships whose experiences have rarely been made known, a loss which may not be a subject for our regret. However, in March, 1834, there sailed from New York the clipper “Margaret Oakley,” bound on a trading and exploring voyage in the South Pacific.[385] She was commanded by Captain Morrell, who was accompanied by a young American, named Jacobs, to whom we are indebted for a very singular narrative of the cruise, which, for private reasons, was not published till 1844. Into the extremely questionable proceedings of Captain Morrell,[386] in his dealings with the natives during his sojournings in the Western Pacific, I need not here enter. It will be sufficient for me to remark that they had better have been buried in the oblivion which is most fitting for such deeds of heartless cruelty. Mr. Jacobs, in his attempt to describe the discoveries of the voyage with which we are more particularly concerned, exercises an amusing freedom in dealing with the explorations of the famous early navigators in this region. Instead of adding to our knowledge of these seas, by his presumption, he has thrown discredit on the whole of his narrative; and it is only by the insertion in his account of a rude sketch-map of New Guinea and the islands south-east of it that he has rescued his narrative from utter confusion. There we see, that by Bidera he means New Britain; by Emeno, New Ireland; Bougainville is honoured by the retention of his name for the large island which he discovered; whilst the other large land-masses of the Solomon Group would have had their identities hopelessly lost in the narrative under the appellations of Baropee, Soterimba, and Cambendo, had it not been for the rude map attached. References to dates are systematically avoided by Mr. Jacobs; however, it would appear that probably, in 1835 or 1836, they extended their cruise to the islands of the Solomon Group. Coasting along the west side of Bougainville Island, they sailed through the straits of that name, and skirting the north coasts of Choiseul (Baropee) and Isabel (Soterimba), they turned Cape Prieto and steered S. by E. Sailing by a singular rock like a ship under sail (the Two Tree Islet of the chart), their course lay through beautiful verdant islands; and then passing a volcanic island with steam issuing from the crater on its summit (the Sesarga of the Spaniards and the Savo of the present day), the lofty lands of Cambendo (Guadalcanar) appeared in view. Coasting westward, along the north side of Guadalcanar, they were visited by Tarlaro, the King(?) of Cambendo, who was accompanied by a great number of natives. On the following day, they visited a large village, where they were friendly received; and shortly afterwards they left the group, steering southward and passing Rennell Island.

In November, 1838, Dumont D’Urville,[387] the French navigator, sighted the Solomon Group, in his passage westward from Santa Cruz. Coasting along the north side of St. Christoval and the south side of Malaita, he recognised in Surville’s Terre des Arsacides the Malaita of the Spaniards. He then set himself to work to clear up the difficulty with reference to the position of the islands named by the Spaniards, Galera, Florida, Buena Vista, Sesarga, &c., islands which had never been since explored, but he ultimately contented himself with viewing these islands from off the north coast of Buena Vista. After endeavouring imperfectly to identify them with the description of their first discoverers, he anchored in Thousand Ships Bay, which was originally discovered by Gallego and Ortega; and he named his anchorage Astrolabe Harbour, after one of his ships. From the circumstance that the natives, who came off to the ships, made use of such expressions as “veri gout,” “captain,” “manoa” (man of war), D’Urville concluded that they had recently been visited by other voyagers.[388] Leaving Thousand Ships Bay, he sailed along the south coast of Isabel, and passing through Manning Strait, he skirted the north side of Choiseul and Bougainville Islands and then left the group.

Dumont D’Urville was the last of the French navigators to whom the re-discovery and exploration of the Solomon Islands are in the main due. A singular fatality seems to have attended the careers of nearly all the French commanders who visited these seas. With the exception of Bougainville, who lived to superintend, in 1804, the fitting out of the flotilla, at Boulogne, for the invasion of England, all died during the voyage or shortly after their return. Surville was drowned on his arrival at Peru. La Pérouse met with his untimely fate at Vanikoro, and neither of the two commanders of the expedition that was sent in search of him survived the voyage; Dentrecasteaux died from scurvy off New Britain, and Huon Kermadec died before the ships left New Caledonia. Lastly, D’Urville was killed in a railway accident at Paris, whilst engaged in the completion of the narrative of his expedition.

In July, 1840, Captain Sir Edward Belcher,[389] whilst on his voyage to New Ireland, in H.M.S. “Sulphur,” made the south coast of Guadalcanar; but after looking in vain for an anchorage, he continued his course. In 1844, Capt. Andrew Cheyne, in the trading-schooner “Naiad,” visited Simbo Island and the neighbouring islands. We are indebted to him for much information concerning this part of the group.[390] About 1847, Monsignor Epalle, a French Roman Catholic Bishop, was landed, with eighteen priests, on the island of Isabel, for the purpose of founding a mission. On first landing, the bishop strayed from the rest of the party and received his death-blow at the hands of the natives, who are supposed to have been tempted by his dress and ornaments. In April of 1847, three French missionaries, living at Makira, were murdered by the hill-tribes of St. Christoval; and in March of the following year, M. Dutaillis,[391] in command of the French corvette “L’Ariane,” anchored at Makira, and sent an expedition into the interior by which the villages of the murderers were destroyed and many of the natives killed and wounded.

In September, 1851, the ill-fated yacht “Wanderer,”[392] with her owner, Mr. Benjamin Boyd, on board, visited the Solomon Group. Cruising along the south coast of St. Christoval, the yacht put into Makira, where she lay at anchor nearly three weeks. Friendly intercourse was established with the inhabitants and frequent shooting excursions were made into the interior. Mr. Boyd thought so highly of the advantages of Makira and its harbour, that he intended to return there with the intention of entering into a treaty with the principal natives of the locality for the purpose of acquiring it for future commercial purposes. However, the careers, both of the yacht and of its owner, were drawing to a close. From Makira, they proceeded to Guadalcanar. Leaving his vessel anchored in Wanderer Bay, as it has since been named, Mr. Boyd landed with his gun, accompanied by a native of Panapa. Neither of them were ever seen again; and they appear to have met with their deaths at the hands of the natives soon after landing. A great number of the natives attacked the yacht, but they were repulsed by the crew of the “Wanderer” with grape-shot and musketry. An ineffectual search was made for Mr. Boyd and his companion: and before the yacht left the locality, round and grape-shot were poured into the villages, canoes and houses were burned, and probably a large number of natives were killed and injured. The “Wanderer” now left the group; and in the following month she was totally lost on the bar of Port Macquarie on the Australian coast.

In 1854, there were rumours in Sydney, that Mr. Boyd was still alive and that his initials had been seen carved on trees in Guadalcanar. A skull, which had been bought from a chief by the captain of a trading-ship as that of Mr. Boyd, proved, on examination, to belong to a Papuan. However, in December of this year, Captain Denham, in H.M.S. “Herald,” visited the scene of the tragedy; and after making inquiry into the matter, he came to the opinion that the unfortunate owner of the “Wanderer” had been killed directly after he landed, and that the various stories current respecting his being alive were inventions of the natives.

I now bring to a close this short sketch of the history of the Solomon Group since its identity was established by the French geographers towards the end of the last century. During the last thirty years there has been greatly increased intercourse with the natives of these islands; the Melanesian Mission has firmly established itself; numerous traders have resided in the more friendly districts; and the visits of men-of-war and trading-ships have been very frequent. But this increased intercourse with the outer world of savage peoples, who can with difficulty distinguish between a stranger and a foe, has been accompanied, as we might naturally have expected, by many tragic episodes, some of which we can deplore, most of which we can only reflect upon with mingled feelings of shame and regret. The reprisals on the part of men-of-war have not been always satisfactory in their results; and the effect of the labour-traffic has been to undermine the confidence which the missionary and well-intentioned trader have been long endeavouring to create. The quiet heroism of the members of the Melanesian Mission, under circumstances often the most dispiriting and insecure, it would ill become me to praise. It will be sufficient, however, to remark that it has been the only redeeming feature in the intercourse of the white man with these islanders during the last twenty-five years.

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