THE VOYAGE OF 1595 153 



no other instance of the veil being lifted for a brief moment 

 to afford a glimpse of the life of an isolated island race, 

 and then dropped again for nigh three centuries, during 

 which no ripple from the outer world came to disturb 

 the silent backwater." 1 



The reason of the failure to rediscover the Solomons 

 was, as Quiros pointed out, the impossibility of determin- 

 ing Longitude. In this case he felt sure Gallego had vastly 

 underestimated the distance. His .own conclusion was 

 that " New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and the islands 

 of Santa Cruz are all near each other," and that more 

 than eight thousand miles intervene between Lima and 

 New Guinea. And, away somewhere to the South, still Who will 

 extended the great golden populous continent, waiting g^en 6 

 to be won for God and King unless the heretic English continent ? 

 got there first. 



1 Amherst, p. Ixxvii. Cf. Discoveries of the French in 1768 and 1769 

 to the South East of New Guinea, by M . . ., 1791. The writer prints 

 a map from Herrera (1601) of the Solomons and New Guinea. 



