PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. 



who proposed to the King of Spain to cut through the isthmus 

 of Darien, and very circumstantially described the route be- 

 tween the San Miguel and Atrato, a favourite one at this 

 hour. 



Alvaro de Mendana, who discovered the Solomon Islands in 

 1567, afterwards planned and attempted a scheme for their 

 colonisation. On his second voyage, however, in 159."), he was 

 unable to find them, and a settlement was tried at Santa Cruz. 

 At that place he died, leaving his wife in command of the 

 colony ; but disease and other disasters soon caused it to be 

 abandoned, and the survivors, sick and dying, sailed away for 

 the Philippines, taking Mendana's body with them. The 

 vessel, carrying the corpse of the pioneer, was last seen in full 

 sail drifting towards a reef, but the body of Mendana had the 

 ghastly companionship of a crew of dead men for no living 

 man was on board the ill-fated discoverer's ship ; Avith their 

 late commander they had all gone on the more extended 

 voyage of eternity. 



Dampier, our countryman, died in obscurity, we know not 

 how or where. 



Fernando Quiros, who gave his name to an island which 

 yields an annual income of some thousands sterling, has left 

 us this record at the hands of Cardinal Valenza : ' I have seen, 

 in a wine-shop of Seville, one Fernando Quiros, who had been 

 an adventurer in the Indies and beyond, and who told me he 



