CHAPTER VII 



THE DISCOVERY OF THE SOLOMONS 



AUTHORITY : 



Voyage of Mendana to the Solomon Islands, ed. LORD AMHERST 

 OF HACKNEY and BASIL THOMPSON (Hakluyt Society). 



ONE main ground of my unbelief in respect to the dis- 

 covery of the Eastern coast of Australia before 1542 

 has been the great improbability that voyages had been 

 made in th,is direction. It seems incredible that Portuguese 

 ships would reach the Eastern coast either by way of 

 Torres Straits or round the North of New Guinea. The 

 Dutch never once saw that coast in the whole course 

 of explorations which extended over a century and a 

 half. And it seems just as incredible that the Spaniards 

 would discover it by sailing from Mexico to the Moluccas, 

 or from the Moluccas to Mexico. 

 The first We now, however, have to follow the story of a voyage 



recorded faat might, had it seemed good to the gods, have ended 



voyage 



which might in the discovery of the Eastern coast, about two hundred 



dfscovered Y ears before that coast actually was discovered by 



Eastern Cook. 



It is a story of Spanish chivalry, and it starts from 

 Peru. Hitherto Spanish enterprise in the Pacific had 

 started from the Western ports of the prosperous state 

 which Cortes had founded in Mexico ; and its direction 

 had consequently been Northward of the Equator on a 

 line making as straight as possible for the Moluccas or 

 the Philippines. Peru, meanwhile, had been torn to pieces 

 by incessant and savage civil wars the series of " blood- 

 and-thunder tragedies," as Mr. Fiske aptly calls them 



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