NOTICES OF NEW BOOKS. 77 



The Solomon Islands and their Natives. By H. B. Guppy, M.B., 

 F.G.S., late Surgeon R.N. in H.M.S. ' Lark.' 



The Solomon Islands: their Geology, General Features, and 

 suitability for Colonisation. By the same Author. 2 vols., 

 8vo. London : Swan Sonnenschein & Co. 1887. 



The most interesting feature in the history of the discovery 

 of the Solomon Group, in the Pacific Ocean, is the circumstance 

 that during a period of two hundred years after it was first 

 discovered, in 1568, by the Spaniards, it was lost to the world, 

 and its very existence doubted, until rediscovered by Carteret in 

 1767. The fancied existence of the precious metals suggested to 

 Mendana, the original Spanish discoverer, the name " the Isles 

 of Solomon," to the end that the Spaniards, supposing them to 

 be the islands whence Solomon obtained his gold, might be 

 induced to go and inhabit them. Various difficulties arising to 

 postpone their colonisation, and in order to prevent the English 

 from 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 remained 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 discoveries, it 

 being considered better, as things were then, to let these islands 

 remain unknown. 



The story of this lost archipelago is capitally told by 

 Dr. Guppy in the twelfth chapter of his first volume, and reads 

 almost like a novel. From a copy of the original MS. of 

 Gallego's journal, preserved in the British Museum, Dr. Guppy 

 has made a translation, which is now in great part printed by 

 him. "In undertaking this translation," he says (p. 193), 

 " I have been greatly assisted by my acquaintance with these 

 islands, and I have thus been able to avoid the pit-falls into 

 which the somewhat careless copyist might have led me." 



During the last thirty years there has been greatly increased 

 intercourse with the natives of these islands ; the Melanesian 

 Mission has firmly established itself; numerous traders have 



