LOPE DE VEGA. 419 



a man carrying sword or musket. I have a quantity of 

 sketches of other carvings that are not described by W. D. 

 Campbell, which I will not stuff our Journal with. A 

 traveller records on the spot, as permanently as circum- 

 stances permit, objects of novelty or interest to him ; he 

 also records them in his journal. The journal is often 

 called a lie, lost or long forgotten ; but rock markings are 

 as near the truth as poor human nature is capable of 

 approaching. 



In 1853 Colonel Barney when at Gladstone, Queensland, 

 found in the sand at South Trees Point, a brass pivot gun 

 about 5 feet long and \\ inch bore. It was inscribed Santa 

 Barbara 1596. Further on at Facing Island on the ocean 

 side, well up in the bush, with the sand and vegetation as 

 a rampart against the sea, lay the remains of a Spanish 

 ship ; oak trees had grown up through her timbers. Again, 

 on a projecting detached rock at Auckland Point was 

 carved the face of a man ; a date was inscribed thereon 

 which was either 1600 or 1800, probably the former. At 

 South Trees Point, at some remote period an extensive 

 clearing had been made, as the vegetation was stunted and 

 did not reafforest quickly. Two wells had been sunk, which 

 were slabbed with sawn timber. There were traces of a 

 building in which teak had been used, and a stone fence. 

 A large block of stone was noted as having been part of a 

 forge. The conclusions then reached were, that a Spanish 

 ship had been wrecked there, an attempt to form a settle- 

 ment had been made, and the people were wiped out by 

 the blacks. 



Regarding these relics, the inscription on the \\ inch 

 pivot gun, "Santa Barbara 1596," cannot be associated 

 with Lope de Vega's ship that sailed from Callao in 1595, 

 unless we assume the inscription date is 1586 instead of 

 1596. In favour of this assumption the 6 or 8 in the date 



A 1— Dec. 1, 1909. 



