LOPE DE VEGA. 43 



long those minutes were. At last we reached the furthest 

 trough, the next wave soared high above our poop lantern, 

 the stern uprose, she did not broach, with one wild heave she 

 passed the black edged coral, and crashed upon the knobs. 

 The next sea hove us thirty fathoms further in, and there 

 we lay a ship without a bottom." 



If this w r reck was Lope de Vega's ship, the presence on 

 Murray Islands of rich varieties of bananas, groves of cocoa- 

 nuts and other fruit, gable built houses, neat fenced plots 

 of land, fishing weirs, and of the Torres Straits date tree 

 is easily accounted for. The natives themselves are 

 obviously blended with something that is neither Papuan 

 nor Australian. Murray Islands are a centre of cocoa-nut 

 distribution, note the way it is scattered on New Guinea, 

 thinning out beyond Sibi to the west and Yule Island to 

 the east, and fewer and fewer as you ascend the Fly River. 

 The cocoa-nut would travel well in De Vega's ship from 

 the Marquesas or Callao. Observe also the absence of 

 cocoa-nuts on the mainland of Australia. Those at Somer- 

 set were planted shortly before I was there. Rumour in 1874 

 said there is or was a solitary cocoa-nut palm on the beach 

 a little north of Cleveland Bay, which may be taken as a 

 scrap of evidence that Lope de Vega passed north by the 

 Inner Route. There is also the origin of the use of bows 

 and arrows. Why are their users so clearly dove-tailed in 

 between the Bing-hi spear men of Australia and the Motu 

 spear men of New Guinea? Did they learn the art of 

 archery from the bringers of the cocoa-nut, and the two 

 things spread over the same area simultaneously ? Here 

 we must bear in mind that it is not Spanish but Peruvian 

 words and customs that are to be sought at Murray Islands, 

 as the work of the ship was undoubtedly done by Peruvian 

 slaves who were archers. 



The hopelessness of the crew, as there is no reason to 

 suppose that any were lost in passing the reef, would lead 



