The Solomon Islands and Their Natives Part 27

[323] Figueroa in his account states that there was always a foot and a half of water in the hold.

The "Capitana," to which s.h.i.+p the narrative for a time alone refers, was now in 29 N. lat. A very strong north-east wind, lasting until November 4th, drove them to the south-east in lat.i.tude 26. These north-easterly winds continued to prevail; and being unable to sail close to the wind, the Spaniards could not keep their lat.i.tude and were being driven from their course, to the south-east.[324] "We were," ... . as Gallego writes, ... . "much wearied and suffered from hunger and thirst, as they did not allow us more than half a pint of stinking water and eight ounces of biscuit, a few very black beans, and oil; besides which there was nothing else in the s.h.i.+p. Many of our people were unable from weakness to eat any more food. A soldier, who had gambled with his allowance of water and had lost it, became desperate with thirst and cried out all the day. Being without a boat, we could do nothing on approaching a harbour. We resolved to trust that G.o.d would send us the means of help. He provided for us in His great mercy, and on the day of St. Isabel (November 19th) he gave us a (fair) wind, and we sailed in the lat.i.tude of 28 and up to 30. This weather lasted until the 26th of November, and we were 125 leagues further on our voyage."

[324] Figueroa in his account tells us that they rigged a jury-mast, making use of a top-mast for this purpose.

During the first week of December they experienced foul winds and thick weather: but on the 9th the wind went round to the south-south-east; and they reached the lat.i.tude of 31 on the 12th. Signs of the vicinity of land were now observed, such as sea-birds and a goose. A sailor leapt into the sea after a floating piece of a pine, and brought it on board, in order to bring fair weather. Rain fell, and enough water was collected for three days. At length the land was sighted by the watchful eye of Gallego. "It was the eve of our Lady the Virgin" ..... he writes ..... "and whilst standing at the side of the s.h.i.+p, I saw the land. Some of us, who despaired to see it, said that it could not be the land. Sailing through the night, two hours before the dawn we found ourselves close to two islets that lay a league from the mainland in lat.i.tude 30 north of the Equinoctial.[325]"

[325] Gallego here observes that the day before the land was sighted, the needle remained pointing north.

At length the Spaniards had reached the coast of Old California. "The mercy of G.o.d"--as Gallego writes--"had brought us safely through so many storms and privations that the soldiers had despaired of seeing it.

Following along the coast, as it trended to the south-east, we entered a bay which resembles in form a pen for shoeing cattle (_corral de herrar ganado_). We could not see the outside point on account of its great distance. We found ourselves embayed; and it was necessary to steer west to weather this point... ... We were detained three days with calms and north-west winds, as we had to beat to windward to weather this point. We named this bay _la bahia de San. tome_: it is in lat.i.tude 27. At the point of this bay there are two large islets, named the Isles of Cacones.[326] We doubled the point on the 23rd of December. We beached the s.h.i.+p for 12 days between these islets. Having lost our boat at sea, we went ash.o.r.e on a raft of casks to get water. There we made another raft of rushes and some casks, on which we carried on board 12 casks of water and many fish that we caught."

[326] This large bay, which deeply indents the Californian peninsula, is named in the present maps the bay of Sebastian Vizcaino, after the Spaniard who surveyed this coast in 1602.

Gallego's name of San. tome, which may be a contraction for San.

Bartolomeo, has, therefore, the priority of some 30 years and more.

The prominent headland, which they had to double, is at present called Point Eugenio. The two _large islets_ off this point are now called Cerros and Natividad Islands.

Having obtained timber for making another boat, they continued their voyage, as the Indians were hostile. A foul wind caused them to pa.s.s by the port of Xalosco, and they "tacked to seaward to double the Cabo de Corrientes, which is in 21, in order to reach the port of Santiago, which is 50 leagues beyond Xalosco."

On the 24th[327] of January, 1569, they entered the port of Santiago.

The Chief-Pilot tells us in his journal that he was well acquainted with this coast and with its people: this port,[328] he says, lies six leagues from Port Natividad, and is in lat.i.tude 19. Before they left Santiago a joyful surprise awaited them. "On the day of St. Paul's Conversion, three days after our arrival, the 'Almiranta' ..... hove in sight. She was much in want of water and provisions; and she carried no boat which, like ourselves, she had cast over in the great storms; and her main-mast was cut away. They did not recognize the coast. It was our Lord's good will to bring us together in this port. G.o.d knows how glad we were to see each other. In preserving us through such great tempests, our Lord had worked a miracle ..... They told us what had happened during the great storms: and that when they arrived, they had only one vessel (_botija_) of water remaining ..... Sama, the alguacil-mayor of the city of Mexico, came with some people of the town of Colima to see who we were, and he talked with the General."

[327] This should be the 22nd of January, as Gallego observes subsequently that the "Almiranta" arriving on the 25th came three days after them.

[328] During his pa.s.sage from the Californian to the Mexican coast, Gallego seems from some observations in his journal to have been puzzled by getting a lat.i.tude of 23 26' before he arrived at the extremity of the Californian Peninsula. He speaks of San Lucas as being "at the end of California in the tropics;" but this observation apparently did not clear up his doubt on the matter; and in fact on first touching the Mexican coast, the number of small bays made him think that it was still the coast of California. The lat.i.tude of Cape San Lucas, the extremity of the Californian Peninsula, is 22 52': it is, therefore, well within the tropics.

The two s.h.i.+ps left the port of Santiago on the 10th of March.[329] Nine days afterwards, they sailed into the port of Atapulco (Acapulco) to obtain news from Peru: but learning nothing, they left in an hour.

Gallego adds that this port is the nearest to the city of Mexico, and that it lies in 17. Proceeding along the Mexican coast, they anch.o.r.ed outside the port of Guatulco (lying according to Gallego in 15); and they sent a boat on sh.o.r.e to learn news of Peru and to get wine and biscuits ..... "All the people of the town," ..... the Chief-Pilot writes ..... "were scared and fled into the interior, because they had heard in Mexico that we were a strange Scotch people"

(_gente estrangera escoceses_).

[329] Gallego refers to an eclipse of the moon at nine in the night of the 10th of March. "At the end of an hour the moon was clear."

Through a jealousy exhibited by the pilots of the "Almiranta" towards Gallego, the "Capitana" was left behind at this port for a day and a night, for which, says the object of their jealousy, the General was very angry with them. However, the "Capitana" arrived in the port of Caputla nine days before the other s.h.i.+p. The people there were at first much disturbed; but on recognising Gallego, who had been there on previous occasions, they were rea.s.sured; and they carried the news ash.o.r.e that the voyagers had come from "the discovery of the islands."

On the 4th of April the "Capitana" arrived in the port of Realejo on the Nicaraguan coast, and was followed five days after by the "Almiranta".

... . "In this port," ..... continues the Chief-Pilot .....

"we beached the s.h.i.+ps and caulked the seams, and set up lower-masts and top-masts, of which we had need, in order to be able to lie up for Peru.

With all our necessity in this port, neither the officials of the government nor any other persons would give or lend money to us for the repair of the s.h.i.+ps. Perceiving that otherwise the s.h.i.+ps would be lost, and that it was indispensable for the service of His Majesty, I lent the General all the money which I had of my own, and I received an acknowledgment for 1400 _pesos_ (dollars), with which the s.h.i.+ps were refitted; and they were victualled for another piece of gold of 400 _pesos_: all this I lent for the service of His Majesty.

"We left this port, which is in lat.i.tude 12, on the 28th of May.

Sailing to the Cabo de Guion (Cape Guion), we lay up thence for the coast of Peru. On the 4th of June we lost sight of the coast of Nicaragua; and on the 5th we pa.s.sed to leeward of Mal Pelo Island.[330]

On the morning of the 11th we were off Facames,[331] which lies four leagues below the Cabo del San Francisco (Cape San Francisco) on the coast of Peru. On the 14th we anch.o.r.ed in Puerto-viejo; and on the 19th we reached Point Santa Elena. On Sunday, the 26th of June,[332] Don Fernando Henriquez left with the news for Lima or the City of the Kings."

[330] The Malpelo Island of the present charts.

[331] This is evidently Atacames, which has the position described.

[332] The two last dates are referred to as July. This is apparently a mistake, and I have, therefore, corrected it in the translation.

LAUS DEO.

CHAPTER XII

THE STORY OF A LOST ARCHIPELAGO.

THE most interesting feature in the history of the discovery of the Solomon Group is the circ.u.mstance 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 pa.s.s 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.

[333] "Purchas, his Pilgrimes," Part IV., Lib. VII.

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 pa.s.sed 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 ma.n.u.script 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]

[334] "History of Lopez Vaz: Purchas, his Pilgrimes," Part IV., Lib.

VII.

[335] _Vide_ prologue to "Gallego's Journal," page 194.

[336] _Vide_ page 192.

[337] Letter from Quiros to Don Antonio de Morga, Governor of the Philippines.

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 circ.u.mstance that, when the s.h.i.+ps 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]

[338] Dollars.

[339] _Vide_ page 245.

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. lat.i.tude 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 s.h.i.+p 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]

[340] Dalrymple's "Historical Collection of Voyages," &c., Vol. I., p. 96.

[341] "Purchas, his Pilgrimes," Vol. IV., p. 1391.

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 s.h.i.+ps 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 lat.i.tude or "to run down his lat.i.tude" 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 lat.i.tude, 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 a.s.sured 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 sh.o.r.es of a large island. The discovery was signalled from the flag-s.h.i.+p, the "Capitana," to the other three s.h.i.+ps: 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 s.h.i.+p 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 sh.o.r.es 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 superst.i.tious 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 s.h.i.+p before finally steering northward, they directed their course westward until they should reach the parallel of 11 of south lat.i.tude, 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps, two only reached the Philippines. The "Fragata" lost the company of the other s.h.i.+ps and "never more appeared." It was subsequently reported that she had been found driven ash.o.r.e with all her sails set and all her people dead and rotten.[344]

[342] The course is differently given, by Quiros as W. by S. and by Figueroa as W.S.W. (Dalrymple's Historical Collection: vol. I., 92.)