Part 28 (2/2)
(Fleurieu's ”Discoveries of the French in 1768 and 1769.”)
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 pa.s.sed 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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+p 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 s.h.i.+ps were the Marquesas.
[359] Pinkerton's ”Voyages and Travels,” vol. XIV., p. 12.
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.
[360] Dalrymple's ”Hist. Coll. of Voyages,” vol. II.
In his ”Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes,” which was published in Paris, in 1756, De Brosses, after referring to the circ.u.mstance 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 j.a.pan, which, having been kept secret by the j.a.panese, 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 j.a.pan, 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.
[361] Tome I., p. 177.
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 antic.i.p.ation 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. Pingre, 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 circ.u.mnavigation 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 lat.i.tude of these islands in 1765, expected to fall in with them more towards the centre of the Pacific, is shown by the circ.u.mstance 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 lat.i.tude 8 13' S., a position more than 800 miles to the eastward of that a.s.signed 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.
[362] Hawkesworth's Voyages (vol. I.) contains the accounts of these expeditions.
In August, 1766, another expedition consisting of two s.h.i.+ps, 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 pa.s.sage through the Straits of Magellan, the two s.h.i.+ps were separated just as they were entering the South Sea. This accidental circ.u.mstance 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 a.s.signed 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 s.h.i.+p, 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.
[363] Captain Carteret communicated with the natives, but did not anchor.
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 s.h.i.+ps 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 s.h.i.+ps 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.” Pa.s.sing through the strait which bears his name, the French navigator coasted along the east side of Bougainville Island, and pa.s.sed off the island of Bouka. The natives who came off to the s.h.i.+p in their canoes displayed the cocoa-nuts they had brought with them, and constantly repeated the cry, ”bouca, bouca, onelle.” 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 Perouse, lay off this island in his s.h.i.+ps in 1792, the natives who came off from the sh.o.r.e, as Labillardiere 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 lat.i.tude.” 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.”
[364] ”Voyage autour du Monde en 1766-1769:” second edit, augmentee: Paris 1772.
[365] Labillardiere's ”Voyage a la recherche de la Perouse:” Paris 1800: tome I., p. 227.
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 Abbe 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 s.h.i.+p 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 Contrariete. The attempt to send a boat ash.o.r.e 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 antea_). In the neighbourhood of Contrariete, Surville sighted three small islands, which he named Les Trois Surs (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 Delivrance 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 Contrariete, he named his discoveries Terre des Arsacides or Land of the a.s.sa.s.sins.
[366] An account of this expedition is given in Fleurieu's ”Discoveries of the French in 1768 and 1769 to the south-east of New Guinea:” London, 1791.
[367] ”Voyages a Madagascar et aux Indes Orientales:” Paris, 1791.
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 s.h.i.+p eastward, he proceeded on his voyage.
[368] An account of this voyage is given in ”Voyage de la Perouse autour du Monde,” par Milet-Mureau: London, 1799: vol. I., p. 201.
[369] ”Discoveries of the French in 1768 and 1769,” etc.: pp. 179, 18 .
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