STORY OF A LOST ARCPTIPELAGO. 247 



an elderly age before any further undertaking was attempted. The 

 appearance of Drake in the South Sea, some years after the return 

 of the expedition to Peru, caused the scheme of colonization to be 

 abandoned. The Spaniards now found a rival in the navigation of 

 that ocean which, under the sanction of a Papal decree, they had 

 hitherto regarded as exclusively their own. The dread that they 

 ■would be unable to hold the " Isles of Salomon " against the attacks 

 of the powerful nation now intruding in their domain, caused them 

 to relinquish the coveted islands ; and " commandement was given, 

 that they should not be inhabited, to the end that such Englishmen, 

 and of other Nations as passed the Straits of Magellan to goe to the 

 Malucos (Moluccas), might have no succour there, but such as they 

 got of the Indian people." ^ To prevent the English obtaining any 

 knowledge of these islands, the publication of the official narrative 

 of Mendana's voyage was purposely delayed. So strong a pressure 

 was brought to bear upon Gallego, the Chief-Pilot of the expedition,^ 

 that he was afraid to publish his journal, which has not only re- 

 mained in manuscript up to the present day, but was not brought to 

 light until the second quarter of the present century. Thus, it 

 happened that for nearly half-a-century after the return of Mendana, 

 there was no account of the expedition -.^ no chart preserved its dis- 

 coveries, it being considered better, as things were then, to let these 

 islands remain unknown.* 



The popular ignorance of these islands naturally increased the 

 mystery that surrounded them ; and their wealth and resources 

 were soon increased ten-fold under the influence of the imao-inative 

 faculties of the Spaniards. Lopez Vaz, the Portuguese already re- 

 ferred to, writing about the year 1586 of the recent American dis- 

 coveries, remarked that " the greatest and most notable discovery 

 that hath beene from those parts now of late, was that of the Isles 

 of Salomon." But romance and fact are strangely mingled in his 

 story. We learn from him, for the first time, that the Spaniards, 

 although " not seeking nor being desirous of gold," brought back 

 with them, from the island of Guadalcanar, 40,000 pezos^ of the 

 precious metal. No reference is made to such a find of gold on the 

 part of the Spaniards in the accounts of Gallego and Figueroa : and 



1 " History of Lopez Vaz : Purchas, his Pilgrimes," Part IV., Lib. VII. 



2 Vide prologue to " Gallego's Journal," page 194. 



3 Vide page 192. 



* Letter from Quiros to Don Antonio de Morga, Governor of the Philippines. 

 ^ Dollars. 



