DISCOVERY OF THE SOLOMONS 135 



They found no continent, but everywhere they saw more 

 land. " To the West," says Sarmiento, " there is an 

 archipelago of innumerable islands, and towards the South 

 one sees a great stretch of land " it was New Georgia. 

 ' The natives," says Gallego, " pointed to the South 

 East, and said there lay much land, and we saw it, but 

 not having any time we did not go back to look at it." 

 Some of the Spaniards sailing the long coast of the island 

 Guadalcanal, and seeing no end of it, seem to have thought 

 it " part of that continent which stretcheth to the Straits 

 of Magellan," 1 while others imagined it was part of New 

 Guinea. 2 If the men in the brigantine had not discovered 

 a " continent," they had at least discovered " an extent 

 of land that seemed to have no limit." 3 



Everywhere natives were met, and earnest endeavours 

 were made at once to get food from them, and "to lead them 

 as labourers into the vineyard of our Lord." Sarmiento 

 was sent at head of a party of men to explore the island 

 of Ysabel, and he reached a point which has never been 

 reached even in our own time. The instructions of the Fran- 

 ciscans, strongly backed by Mendana, were that he should 

 treat the natives with humanity, and should lead them 

 with tenderness into the way of salvation. It would 

 have been a task impossible to a missionary far more 

 fervent than Sarmiento. The natives, then as now, were 

 head-hunting cannibals, and incurably treacherous. If 

 they were friendly, they would offer you the quarter of 

 a boy with some taru roots ; and if, after burying the 

 boy, you accepted their friendship, in a few minutes 

 they would be cutting you into pieces and sucking your 

 brains. Sarmiento met barbarism by Spanish cruelty, 

 and even the humane Mendana was forced to sanction 

 the use of arms. 



As a Franciscan mission the enterprise was a failure. Was it 

 But there remained the question of gold. The soldiers, Eldorado ? 

 seeing everything yellow, noted the heavy iron-stone 



1 Lopez Vaz in Hakluyt. 2 Arias, p. 17. 



1 " All the extent of land which seemed to have no limit, lay to the 

 West and South-East " (Gallego, p. 61). 



