JOURNAL OF GALLEGO. 193 



which, although it contained a few additional particulars, was of 

 little service to the cartographer. 



It appears to have been only in the second quarter of the 

 present century that the existence of a journal written by Gallego 

 became known to geographers. It may seem at first sight difficult 

 to explain the reason of this narrative being so long unknown ; 

 but its author tells us in his prologue that it was through fear 

 he did not publish it; and from other circumstances, referred 

 to in the succeeding pages, it may be inferred that pressure was 

 brought to bear on him, and that the journal was intentionally 

 withheld in order to keep Drake, who had recently appeared in the 

 South Sea, in ignorance of the position of these islands. The jour- 

 nal has for this reason always remained in manuscript. The original 

 manuscript was a few years since in the possession of Mr. Amhurst. 

 There is a copy in the library of the British Museum, which was 

 purchased of M. Fr. Michelena y Roiss in 1848;^ and it is a transla- 

 tion of this copy that is given in great part in the following pages. 

 In undertaking this translation, I have been greatly assisted by my 

 acquaintance with these islands; and I have thus been able to avoid 

 the pitfalls into which the somewhat careless copyist might have 

 led me. 



If M. M. Buache and Fleurieu could have had access to this 

 journal of Gallego, they would have been saved much laborious 

 criticism, both on their own part and on the part of others. That 

 they were able to employ the scanty data, furnished by Figueroa 

 for the identification of the lost Isles of Solomon with the^'recent 

 discoveries of their own day, is an accomplishment concerning which 

 any adulation on my part would be both unnecessary and unbe- 

 coming. Even with the comparative wealth of materials which the 

 journal of Gallego aftbrds, as contrasted with the account of 

 Figueroa, all that remained to be done was to fill in the rude out- 

 line originally sketched by the French geographers. 



The story of the gradual identification^'of the Isles of Solomon 

 forms an interesting and instructive episode in the history of geo- 

 graphical discovery. In the sketch which I have given, I have, so 

 to speak, raked up the ashes of a controversy which burnt itself 

 out some generations ago ; but the labour expended in its prepara- 



1 The British Museum Eeference number is 17,623 ; and the title is as follows : " Des- 

 cubrimiento de las Islas Salomon en el Mar del Sur : 156G," by Hernando Gallego, native of 

 Corunna. 



N 



