STORY OF A LOST ARCHIPELAGO. 261 



ville's plan.s and charts, these discoveries are referred to as forming 

 part of the Louisiade Archipelago which he had found to the south- 

 ward. In the general chart showing the track of his voyage, the 

 Solomon Islands are placed about 350 miles north-west of the 

 Navigator Islands ; and they are there referred to as " Isles Salomon 

 dont I'existence et la position sont douteuse." 



In June of the following year, 17C9, there sailed from Pondicherry 

 an expedition commanded by M. de SurviUe/ who was bound on 

 some enterprise with the object of which we are still to a great ex- 

 tent unacquainted. It is, however, probable as we learn from Abbe 

 Rochon,^ that some rumour of an island aboundino- in wealth and 

 inliabited by Jews, which was reported to have been lately seen by 

 the English seven hundred leagues west of Peru, had led to the 

 fitting out of this expedition. Not unlikely, stories of the wealth of 

 the missing islands of Mendana had been revived by the arrival in 

 India of some ship that had come upon them in her track across the 

 Pacific ; and the reference to their being populated by Jews may be 

 readily understood when I allude to the fact that the form of the 

 nose in one out of every five Solomon Islanders, and in truth in 

 many Papuans, gives the face quite a Jewish cast. In October, 17G9, 

 Surville discovered and named Port Praslin on the north-east coast 

 of Isabel, which was the same island of the Solomon Group that 

 Mendana had first discovered two hundred years before. Here he 

 stayed eight da^'s, duiing which time his watering-parties came into 

 lamentableconflict with the natives. Sailing eastward from Port 

 Praslin, he sighted the Gower Island of Carteret, which he named 

 Inattendue Island. Subsequently lie reached Ulaua, which he 

 called, on account of the unfavourable weather which he experienced 

 in its vicinity, He de Contraiiete. The attempt to send a boat ashore 

 was the occasion of another unfortunate affray with the natives, who 

 were ultimately dispersed with grape-shot. It will be remembered 

 that just two centuries before, the Spaniards in the brigantine came 

 into conflict with these same islanders, and that they named their 

 island La Treguada in consequence of their supposed treachery {vide 

 antea). In the neighbourhood of Contrariete, Surville sighted three 

 small islands, which he named Les Trois Soeurs (Las Tres Marias of 

 the Spaniards), and near them another island, which he called Iledu 



■^ An account of this expedition is given in Fleiirieu's "Discoveries of the French in 170S 

 and 1709 to the south-east of Xew Guinea : " London, 1791. 



2 " Voyages a Madagascar et aux Indes Orientales : " Paris, 1791. 



