SPANISH EXPLORERS

Hokitika Guardian, 19 September 1932, Page 2

SPANISH EXPLORERS

PIONEERING THE PACIFIC. ■A GLORIOUS RECORD. ‘‘When we think of exploration in the Pacific we genera My think ol’ two great sailors—Cook 'and Tasman,” said Dr .J. G. Beaglehole, speaking at the Auckland University College on Spanish exploration in the 'Pacific. As a matter of fact, in th e 30l) years which were occupied in that exploration, Tasman came but half-way, and the three Voyages of C n «k wepjubut the culmination of the arduoifel-work of one and a fc.lf .centuries. The earliest sailors in the Pacific were neither English .nor Dutch, but .Spanish. The Pacific was not .discovered until 101ß, when Balboa saw the “Great South Sea;” but the voyage of Magellan—after whom the straits in the south of-South America were named—.first brought the ocean into notice. iVHagellan was in the services of the ‘King of Spain, and he wished to find a way to the Spice Islands by the west.

The speaker dwelt on the hardships overcome by these early explorers, and their intrepidity. H e told how Mage 1 - .b,n crushed a mutiny, of how he expressed hi« determination of going on even if th 6 ship’s company had to take the hide from The ma'sts and eat that. Magellan sailed through the straits tho.it hear his name into the Great South Sea, a m “so great that the human mind can scarce grasp it.” Por 98 days he sailed across the waters, seeing on land, until stocks of water became bad, the 'biscuits became putrid, terrible scurvy broke out, sawdust and rats had to be eaten, and the ci’ew had in fact to take the ox-hide off the masts. They dragged it in the sea to soften it, and then .roasted it over embers. Eventually he reached the East Indian Island, end there he was killed in a squabble with some natives. “The voyage was one of the principal navigations of all history,” said T)r Beaglehole, “and the difficulties of Co’, umbus pale befor 6 it.” Thereafter many Pacific exploration ships sailed from Peru, which at tlv* time wa« a Spanish colony. In 1.56" Mendana, the nephew of the Viceroy at that time, sailed from CaHao with two ships, one of 250 tons and one of 107 tons. When 80 days out from land they sighted land, and thought it was the long-dreamed |f continent of the “Great Sea.” They met with headhunting cannibals, and force was used. T\hey found no gold, and when eventually, oiter treacherous storms, they reached California, the expedition was called a failure. The people fled from them, thinking that they were “strange Scottish folk,” under the English pirate, Hawkins. A legend grew up as to the islands the. ships had reached. People,, believed that they were the islands of Ophir, from which Solomon took the gold; and they thought of the island as of Solomon, or the Solomon Islands.

QUIROS AND TORRES. In 1608 Quiros, a famous pilot, who had been with (Mendana, sailed from Callao with three ships and 300 men and a year’s provisions. He became separated fron* his lieutenant in -a bay in the New Hebrides, and by devious ways made his-way back to California. H e died in Panama in 1615. Torres, his second in command, determined to sail on, and he went as far south as 20 degrees south latitude, and reached iNew Guinea through the straits which were called after him. ,

The record of Spanish exploration in the Pacific, said Dr Beaglehole, was a gilorious one, though not untarnished. “But where there was so much virtue, so much of accomplishment— will 'history refuse its measured admiration ?”