Guadalcanal

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 28, 28 October 1942, Page 6

Guadalcanal

Sir The- discussion in your columns about the spelling of Guadalcanal is rather amusing. “The Dominion is right iu using the spelling “Guadalcanal, but apparently does not know the best of alt reasons why it is right. A correspondent, “T.D.,” who wants “Guadalcanar used, cites the worst of all “authorities for that, and betrays his abysmal ignorance by flatly asserting that Mbeie never was a final 1.” . The “authorities” of I.D. are skippers of cutters and schooners .trading from Fiji to the Solomons and many other areas.” During a much longer acquaintance with the Pacific thau “T.D. claims, I have never come across a skipper ot any trading vessel, brig, schooner or cutter, who was any sort of authority on the spelling or pronunciation of the name ot any island he called at, or who knew much about the history of the islands. I don t blame them; they were there for other purposes. The reason why Guadalcanal is so spelled is that that is the name bestowed upon the island by its discoverer. Ihe Solomon Islands were discovered m 156 S by an expedition fitted out by the Spanish Government, dispatched from Peru, and commanded by Alvaro Mendana de Neyra. Mentions s first landing in the group which he called the Islands of Solomon was at an island he named Santa Ysabel. There he caused a brigantine to be built so that the islands could be explored without endangering the expedition's two ships. The command ot the brigantine was given to Pedro de Ortega, with Hernan Gallego, the chief pilot of the expedition, as his pilot. From the brigantine a landing was made on a large island to which, says Gallego’s narrative, "we gave the name of Guadalcanal." A report from another member of the brigantine's complement, incorporated iu Mendaua’s official narrative, is even more explicit: it says that. Pedro de Ortega "gave it the inline of his native place, which is Guadalcanal.” Ortega was a native of Guadalcanal, iu the province of Valencia, Spain. Soon after Mendaua’s return the Solomon Islands disappeared from the knowledge of Europeans for two centuries. In 1766 Carteret sighted three islands of the group, without recognizing them. Two years later Bougainville discovered two of the northern islands. In 1769 Surville touched nt several islands —Guadalcanal was not among them—without recognising them, and in 1788 Shortland coasted along Guadalcanal and another island, and under the impression that he had made a itew discovery, mimed them New Georgia. The veil was lifted gradually, but even iu 1873 a British naval chart showed great stretches of the coastline of Guadalcanal (spelt correctly in a map reproduced from that chart) in only approximate outline. —I am, etc., A. CLEWIS. ' Wellington, October 25.