THE VOYAGE OF 1595 147 



he said, were at the furthest five thousand eight hundred 

 miles away. Two hundred more miles might be allowed 

 as margin, but " no more land was to be delineated lest 

 some ship steer to or desert to it." 



On the 2 1st of July they came to certain islands. 

 Mendafia so vague was the reckoning of longitudes was 

 joyfully confident that he had already reached the Solomons. 

 He was in fact little more than half way. Finding that 

 the islands were " a new discovery," he called them after 

 the friendly Viceroy, Las Marquesas de Mendoza. To-day The 

 we think of the Marquesas chiefly by reason of R. L. 

 Stevenson's sad stories of the miseries of their people. 1 

 Quiros received a very different impression. There was 

 " much reason," he wrote, " to praise God who created 

 them." He tells of women " prettier than the ladies 

 of Lima, who are famed for beauty," and of a boy " with 

 countenance like that of an angel, I never in my life felt 

 such pain as when I thought that so fair a creature should 

 be left to go to perdition." 



The Mass was said, and the natives were taught to 

 make the sign of the cross, and to say " Jesus Mary " 

 and the rest. They did so "with great amusement" and 

 thorough good will. But they were " great thieves," 

 and the soldiers began to shoot them. One, who had 

 wantonly shot down a man and child together, explained 

 that he had done so lest " he should lose his reputation 

 as a good marksman." Quiros asked how it would serve 

 him to enter into Hell with the fame of being a good shot ! 

 A friend of Quiros pointed his gun at the natives. Quiros 

 took the gun out of his hands, and " asked him what he 

 was going to do with so much diligence ? " " He replied 

 that his diligence was to kill because he liked to kill." 

 " It is a foul and sinful thing," said Quiros, " to murder 

 a body which contains a soul." 



The Marquesas were not the Solomons, and the ships Mendafia 



sailed on. The soldiers grew mutinous as Mendafia's *?; lls to find 



. the 



promise that land would be soon sighted remained unful- Solomons. 



filled. They began to " form both public and private 

 1 In the South Seas, ch. 5. 



