Gente Hermosa: the Island of 
u Beautiful People 
ONG, long ago, when Fernando Quiros, 
I j the Spanish pilot, sailed among the 
islands of the great unknown South Sea, his 
ship touched at a small, low-lying island, 
densely covered with groves of palm trees which 
grew to the very verge of the bright, shining 
beaches of snow-white sand that encircled them 
like a belt of ivory. This island was inhabited 
by a race of light copper-coloured natives of 
“gentle demeanor and very great beauty of 
person;” in fact so ravishingly beautiful were 
many of the females who boarded the ship that 
Quiros, in the chart he sent home to his royal 
master in Spain, named the island “ Gente 
Hermosa” — handsome or beautiful people. 
There is much doubt, however, that the Gente 
Hermosa of Quiros is the Gente Hermosa (now 
