The Voyages Of Pedro Fernandez De Quiros Part 31

[78] Leza calls it "Anegada." In the Memorial of 1609 the name "La Encarnacion" was given to the first island.

[79] Leza calls it "San Puerto." Torres gives the name of "San Valerio." The two islands are 75 leagues apart.

[80] Torres calls them "Las Virgenes."

[81] This is a very early notice of the use of a method of obtaining fresh water by condensing.

[82] This island is Anaa, or Chain Island, about 200 miles east of Tahiti, in the same lat.i.tude. It was named "Conversion de San Pablo" by Quiros. No name is given by Torres or in Torquemada. Burney confused "Sagittaria" a small atoll seen after leaving "Conversion de San Pablo" with that island. Whenever he mentions "Sagittaria" it should be "Conversion de San Pablo." Burney says that the "Sagittaria" of Quiros is generally believed to be Tahiti (vol. ii, p. 277 n.). It was Captain Wallis, the discoverer of Tahiti in 1767, who first thought that he had identified that beautiful island with the "Sagittaria"

of Quiros: because the lat.i.tude is about the same, and because a low isthmus is described. But Tahiti has several good anchorages; the island of Quiros has none. Tahiti is very lofty; the island of Quiros is flat. Tahiti has abundant supplies of water; the island described by Quiros has none. Moreover, Quiros says that his first inhabited island has a large shallow lake in its centre. The Pilot Leza describes it as a ring of land encircling part of the sea. Sir William Wharton, who identifies the island with Anaa, or Chain Island, has pointed out that the pa.s.sages describing the landing, especially the one in Torquemada, are excellent accounts of the difficulty of landing on the foresh.o.r.e of a low reef island; but Tahiti, though there is a barrier reef round it, has a smooth lagoon within, with easy landing, and there are numerous openings in the reef. The description of the march across what has been supposed to be an isthmus, answers to the low land of an atoll, the water on the other side being the lagoon.

The only low island near Tahiti is Tetaroa, which is 20 miles from it. But another low island was not seen by Quiros, after leaving "Conversion de San Pablo," until the second day. Starting from Tahiti, there is no such island; but, sailing from Anaa and steering W.N.W. before the trade wind, there are such low islands as are mentioned.

These considerations make it quite certain that Quiros never sighted Tahiti, as Burney supposes.

[83] Luis de Belmonte Bermudez, the Secretary to Quiros and probable author of the narrative.

[84] It should be Sojo.

[85] Dr. Bolton G. Corney found at Seville the journal of the frigate Aquila, which was sent by the Viceroy of Peru on a voyage to Tahiti, under the command of Don Tomas Gayangos in 1774. In reconnoitring the island of Anaa, on November 2nd, 1774, a well-proportioned cross was seen, set up on a sandy beach, on the skirts of a wood. The Spaniards of 1774 named the island "Todos Santos."

[86] The S.E. end, 18 30' S. (Torres); N.W. point, 17 40'

S. (Torquemada). Burney calculates the longitude 147 7' W.

[87] Niau, or Greig Island, of the chart. Torres calls it "Santa Polonia."

[88] Makatea, or Aurora Island, of the chart.

[89] Matahiva, or Lazareff Island, of the chart. The present editor may be excused for referring to Lazareff as the first coral island he ever saw. He was a naval cadet on board H.M.S. Collingwood when, at seven bells in the forenoon of Friday, August 8th, 1845, she sighted the island. There was a border of white sand between the blue sea and the dense cocoa-nut grove. He went to the main-topmast head for a view of the interior lagoon over the cocoa-nut trees. At that very time he was reading Burney's account of the voyage of Quiros.

[90] The sloping sides of a roof.

[91] Torres called it "Matanza." In Torquemada the name "Gente Hermoso"

is given. The Memorial (1609) gives "Peregrino."

[92] Probably wooden swords for teaching the drill.

[93] "Tafetan tornasol."

[94] See pp. 81 and 85.

[95] Torres and Torquemada give the native name. Leza calls the island "Nuestra Senora de Loreto." In the Memorial the name is "Monterey,"

after the Viceroy of Peru.

[96] Torres gives 1940 leagues (169 45' E.). Lat.i.tude, 10 10' S.

[97] Outriggers.

[98] Torres calls it "Chucupia." The Memorial has "Tucopia." Quiros gives the lat.i.tude 12 15' S.; Torres, 12 30' S. Undoubtedly, the Tucopia of modern charts, in 12 15' S. and 169 50' E.

[99] Torres calls it a very high volcano. Torquemada gives the name of "Nuestra Senora de la Luz." The Memorial has "San Marcos." It is the Pic de l'Etoile of Bougainville. The volcano is now extinct. Lat.i.tude, 14 25' S. "Merlav," or "Star Peak," on modern charts.

[100] Torres has "Santa Maria." It is the "Gaua" of modern chart in the Banks Group.

[101] Martin Lope Cortal was Pilot of Lopez de Legazpi's s.h.i.+p on the voyage from Mexico to the Philippines, and he afterwards made a voyage to Mexico without licence. He and some companions landed at islands called Barbudos, and the s.h.i.+p left them there. That this native should have used these words is extraordinary.

[102] Egg-plant nightshade, Solanum melongena, L.

[103] The name of the Duke of Sesa was Don Antonio de Cardona y Cordova. See pp. 163 and 168.

[104] Cardona and La Clementina, looking like a range of mountains and main land, were the islands of Pentecost, Aurora, and Leper, overlapping each other.

[105] Not in Leza's list.

[106] "Araucana," por Don Alonso de Ercilla. Canto XXVII, octava 52.

[107] The "friend" is, of course, Belmonte Bermudez, the Secretary of Quiros.

[108] Captain Cook relates that his people caught two reddish fish with hook and line in Port Sandwich, Malicolo Island (one of the New Hebrides), on July 24th, 1774. The fish were about the size of a large bream. Most of the officers, and some of the petty officers, dined on them the next day. The following night, every one who had eaten of them was seized with violent pains in the head and bones, attended with a scorching heat all over the skin, and numbness in the joints. The pigs and dogs who had partaken of the fish were also taken ill, and two died. It was a week or ten days before all the officers recovered. In mentioning this, Cook refers to the similar experience of Quiros and his crew, as described by Dalrymple, vol. i, p. 140.--Cook's Second Voyage, vol. ii, p. 39.

[109] He means betel. See p. 51.

[110] Thistles; teazel.

[111] The s.p.a.ce between the end of the thumb and the end of the forefinger, both stretched out.

[112] Coral cliffs.

[113] Captain Cook visited the Island of Espiritu Santo in August, 1774, and on the 25th entered the bay of San Felipe y Santiago, discovered by Quiros. The wind being S., Cook was obliged to beat to windward. Next morning he was 7 or 8 miles from the head of the bay, which is terminated by a low beach, and behind that an extensive flat covered with trees, and bounded on each side by a ridge of mountains. The lat.i.tude was 15 5' S. Steering to within 2 miles of the head of the bay, he sent Mr. Cooper and Mr. Gilbert to sound and reconnoitre the coast. Mr. Cooper reported that he had landed on the beach near a fine river. They found 3 fathoms close to the beach, and 55 two cables' lengths off. At the s.h.i.+p there was no bottom with 170 fathoms. When the boat returned, Captain Cook steered down the bay; and during the night there were many fires on the W. side. In the morning of the 27th the s.h.i.+p was off the N.W. point of the bay, in lat.i.tude 14 39' 30". The bay has 20 leagues of sea-coast--6 on the E. side, 2 at the head, and 12 on the W. side. The two points which form the entrance bear S. 53 E., and N. 53 W., from each other distant 10 leagues. An uncommonly luxuriant vegetation was everywhere to be seen. Captain Cook named the E. point of the bay "Cape Quiros," which is in 14 56' S., and longitude 167 13' E. He named the N.W. point "Cape c.u.mberland." It is in 14 38' 45" S., and 166 49' 30" E.--Cook's Second Voyage, vol. ii, p. 89.

The Editor has to thank Dr. Bolton G. Corney for the following very interesting account of his visit to the bay of San Felipe y Santiago in 1876:--

"While on a voyage through the New Hebrides in the barque Prospector, of 260 tons, in August, 1876, I visited the bay of San Felipe y Santiago, now commonly known to s.h.i.+pmasters and other habitues of the Western Pacific as the 'Big Bay.'

"The island itself is, for short, spoken of as 'Santo,' not only by local white men, but also by many of the natives of it and the neighbouring ones, many of whom have been in Fiji or Queensland, and have picked up a little Fijian or English, as the case may be.

"The Prospector was chartered by the Government of Fiji to return 476 of these people to their homes, in completion of contracts made with them a few years before, after performing a term of labour on the cotton and maize or cocoa-nut plantations of that group of islands, which, in 1874, became a British Crown colony. I was in charge of these returning emigrants, both medically and as representing the Government.

"We pa.s.sed from Malikolo to 'Santo', and worked up under the lee of its western side to Pusei and Tasimate, landing and recruiting emigrants as we went, and bartering for yams, and taro, and pigs by way of provisions. We rounded Cape c.u.mberland (the extreme N.W. point of the island), and worked into the bay of San Felipe y Santiago, making one long board to the E.N.E or N.E. by E. first, and then a long leg to the S.S.W., or thereabouts, which brought us close in with the land on the W. side of the bay. The land there was high and steep, and we had deep water until quite close into the beach. We then went about and made short tacks towards the fundus of the bay, where we had to lay the barque quite close in to the sh.o.r.e before getting anchorage. The water was blue and clear, and I do not recollect seeing any reefs or patches. The anchorage we made for was known to our recruiting agents, who called it the 'river Jordan.' I have a recollection of hearing that we got 9 fathoms with the lead just before letting go. The water was quite smooth, protected by the land at the head of the bay from the prevailing trade-wind; and the barque lay at a few boats' lengths from the beach--about 300 yards W. from the embouchure of the river.

"Our objects in calling there were (i) to land certain natives of the place whom we had on board, with their earnings; (ii) to recruit others if any suitable ones offered; and (iii) to obtain wood and fill water.

"The beach, if my memory does not mislead me, was of black sand, which is not an uncommon thing in islands of volcanic origin, such as the New Hebrides: the distance from low water-mark to the edge of the timber and undergrowth which fringed it just above high-water mark, was only a few yards--perhaps 18 or 25--except near the mouth of the river, where it was more shelving, and extended out into a sandy foresh.o.r.e or bank corresponding to the bar, the dry land being flat and of alluvial formation.

"The river was about as large as the Thames at Isleworth, and flowed into the bay through a wide and far-reaching valley from S. to N. Its banks were low, and overgrown with reeds and scrub, and more than usually free from the customary mangrove trees and bushes. We did not explore it for far, because the friendly att.i.tude of the natives could not be depended on to last, if they should get us into a 'corner;'

but I pulled into the river in one of the recruiting boats for a short distance, and selected a place at which we filled our beakers and water-casks with water of good and fresh quality. This was perhaps less than half a mile from the mouth: the water was clear, and we could see the bottom in mid-stream; but the tide was at the last of the ebb, as we had chosen that time for the sake of getting the freshest water.

"The natives brought us some dead logs to the beach, and others on bamboos to the vessel's side, much of which the sailors and officers bartered for in the belief that it was sandal wood. It was in reality, I believe, the wood known in Fijian as Sevna or Cevna, a kind of Pittosporum, which grows near the sea and has a strong sandal-wood odour. We also obtained the natives' consent to our cutting some firewood, which was mostly wild dawa (Nephilium pinnatum), and mulomulo (Hiliuscus populnea), a littoral tree often used in Fiji to cut boats'

knees from.