i2 4 o .ll'STRALASIA ILLUSTRATED. 



land Group. In the northern Group are Ulaua, Malayta, Florida, Isabel, Choiseul, 

 Bougainville and Bouka. Most of the islands are mountainous, and all are thickly 

 wooded. In Bougainville, the mountains are ten thousand feet higji, and in Guadalcanar 

 they attain an elevation of eight thousand feet. An active volcano exists on Bougain- 

 ville. These islands were discovered by Alvaro de Menclafia in the year 1567, but for 

 two hundred years after that they were lost to the world, and very many indeed 

 doubted their existence. Mendafta failed to find them again on his second voyage in 

 1595, and died at Santa Cruz. Fernandez de Quiros, who had been with him on his 

 first voyage, was chief pilot on this second expedition, and afterwards sailed in command 

 of another expedition in 1605, but he also failed. Roggewein, the Dutch navigator, was 

 also unsuccessful in 1722 in his search for this lost Group, which defeated the quest 

 of these adventurous mariners like the fabled Hy-Brasil of the early dreamers. Captain 

 Carteret in the Swallow, sighted some of the Islands in 1767, but was not aware that 

 he had discovered the long-lost islands of Mendafla. In 1768, Bougainville, the French 

 navigator, discovered Choiseul, Bougainville and Bouka. Surville, in 1 769, made several 

 discoveries in the Group, but failed to identify the Islands as those originally discovered 

 by Mendafla, and in 1 788, Lieutenant Shortland sailed along the south side of the 

 Group, and named several islands, headlands and mountains, but it was reserved for the 

 patient investigation of geographers, notably M. Buache, in 1781, and M. Fleurieu, in 

 1 790, to prove the identity of the discoveries of Bougainville, Surville, Shortland and 

 others, with the Solomon Islands of Mendana. The after voyagers who added to the 

 knowledge supplied by the first discoverers were Lieutenant Ball in the Supply, in 

 1790; Captain Bower in the Albcmarlc, in 1791 ; Captain Manning in the ship Pitt, 

 in 1792; and Admiral d'Entrecasteaux in the same year. During the first half of the 

 present century, in addition perhaps to an occasional whaler or trading ship, the 

 principal visitors were Captain Morrell in the Margaret Oakley, in 1834 ; Dumont 



d'Urville in 1838; Sir Edward Belcher in H.M.S. Snlp/inr, in 1840; and Mr. Boyd in 



r 



the yacht Wanderer, in 1851. Mr. Boyd was killed at Wanderer Bay, in Guadalcanar. 

 In 1847, Monseigneur Espalle, a French Roman Catholic bishop, was landed on Isabel, 

 but was killed by the natives, as were also three French missionaries on the Island 

 of San Christoval in the same year. 



The importance of this group to Australia in the not very distant fxiture can scarcely 

 be exaggerated. Many of the islands are very large and contain extensive tracts of 

 very fertile lands. On the north-west end of the Island of Guadalcanar there are large 

 plains of well-watered lands, stretching far inland to the base of the lofty range in the 

 centre of the Island. This land would unquestionably be very suitable for the growth 

 of the sugar-cane, or any other tropical productions. The Island is reported also to be 

 very rich in minerals, but as it has never yet been explored this is at present very 

 little more than conjecture. Copper, however, has long been known to exist on San 

 Christoval. The appearance of the Group on the charts gives little idea of the large 

 number of islands and islets of which it is composed. A traveller coasting along the 

 shores of San Christoval, then entering Marau Sound on Guadalcanar, then voyaging up 

 the north side of that splendid Island, leaving the large Island of Malayta and the 

 Florida Group to the right, sailing through the Russell, Rubeana (New Georgia), Villa 



