LOST ARCHIPELAGO

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 77, 31 August 1942, Page 2

LOST ARCHIPELAGO

THE SOLOMON ISLANDS

STORY OF THEIR DISCOVERY INACCURACIES IN NEWS The story of a lost archipelago, which is now prominent in the news, the Solomon Islands, was told in St. John’s Methodist Church last night by the Rev. A. H. Voyce, a missioner who returned from the Solomons at the time of the Japanese occupation. He gave instances of what he described as poetic license often featured in the news about the Solomon Islands. Seventy-five years before the coast of Australia was visited by Dutch navigators the Solomon Islands were discovered and fairly accurately charted, but despite the fact that they were the first islands in the South Pacific to be discovered and despite the fact that geographically they were one of the most important groups in the South Pacific they were the last to be explored, said Mr Voyce. who added: “That is, if islands about the interior of which scarcely anything is known can truthfully be said to be explored.” In 1567, only 75 years after Columbus discovered America and only 54 years before Balboa first discovered the Pacific Ocean, and exactly 200 years before Captain Cook set sail from England on his first voyage, Alvaro de Mendana de Neyra discovered the Solomon Islands and spent six months exploring them, and charting them, making charts so accurate that today, 375 years later, it was possible to identify every harbour and creek and islet by which his expedition passed. From that time for exactly 200 years they were literally lost to European eyes. Geographers came to doubt their very existence and the group was expunged from the charts of that period until re-discovered in 1767, first by the Englishman, Carteret who did not land, and then by the Frenchman Bougainville, though neither of these men realised that they had discovered the lost islands of the Solomons. It was left to cartographers to identify them. The speaker mentioned that Bougainville was aid-de-camp to Montcalm at Quebec, and that Captain Cook was the man who charted the passage allowing the British to go close up to the heights.

After Balboa discovered the Pacific and took possession of it in the name of his sovereign, King Ferdinand of Spain, a great stir was caused in Europe. Then in 1520 Magellan forced a way into the Pacific by the straits which bear his name. So Spain developed a thriving colony at Peru on the Pacific coast of South America and the important forward base at the Port of Callao. There in Callao in 1566 the two ships which Medana bought were fitted out for the expedition: the Capitana of 250 tons and the Almiranta of 107 tons. Officially the excuse for the expedition was “To convert the infidel to Christianity,” but there was no doubt that the real motive was conquest of the new territory and spoliation of the lands to be discovered.

SPANIARD’S DISCOVERY The first landfall after leaving Peru was some low-lying coral island to the north-east of the Solomons named Candelaria from their having discovered it on Candlemas Eve (this island to-day was known as Ontong Java). After naming Candelaria he passed to the south-west and sghted not far distant the large island of Ysabel and sailed into what he called Estrella Bay. During the next six months most of the southern islands of the group were discovered and charted and had melodioussounding Spanish names bestowed on them which still appeared on the maps to-day and constantly appeared in the news, for example, La Florida, San Cristobal, Santa Anna, Bueno Vista, and Guadalcanar. Mendana’s “Chief Pilot” Gallego, wrote a good account of the voyage of exploration, but some of his descriptions of the Solomons were sheer exaggerations and out of all keeping with the accuracy of his details of bearings and chartings. He said that the island of Malaita was 114 leagues in length; actually it was only about a quarter of that length. Speaking of Guadalcanar he wrote: “Guadalcanar is a very great island.

II do not estimate its size because half a year would be required to sail along its shores. That we sailed along its I northern coasts for 130 leagues and did not reach its end shows its great size.” Really Guadalcanar was about 90 miles long, said Mr Voyce. Gallego wrote of the villages as being of great size and described the meeting together of what he called ‘40,000 Indians.” Yet the total population of the whole of Guadalcanar to-day was only about eight or ten thousand. Before Captain Cook came to the Pacific pigs of the type commonly known as Captain Cookers were very common in the Solomon Islands, as no doubt they were in other islands of the Pacific even including New Zealand, said Mr Voyce. So one thing Captain Cook did not do was to introduce pigs to the South Pacific islands. The speaker pointed out that the superb exaggerations of Gallego were paralleled in the poetic license of many statements in the news to-day about the Solomons. Mr Voyce referred to statements frequently published about aerodromes on the island of Tulagi, a hilly island of only three miles in circumference. Tulagi harbour had been described as the largest harbour in the Southern Hemisphere. It was a fine harbour, he admitted, but its extent was limited and could not compare with Sydney, Auckland or Rio de Janeiro. American marines were reported to have landed on the island of Makambo and after consolidating their positions were advancing inland. Actually Makambo was about six or I eight acres in extent. The small village of Haleta suddenly sprang into the headlines and shared with London the privilege of ! having been bombed. Haleta was a cluster of native huts with about 40 | inhabitants and until it was mentioned in the news from London 90 , per cent of the Europeans living in . the Solomons had never even heard of ' its existence. The island of Malaita was said to have a population of 100.000 savage head-hunters, but the total population of the whole of the Solomon Islands group was only approximately 90,000. | That night from the 8.8. C. they had been told that six important is- ' lands of the Solomons had been occupied by the Americans. Actually three of these islands were too small . to appear on even big detailed maps He was referring to the islands of . Makambo, Gavutu and Tanamboga. Those three islands were in Tulagi harbour.

Mr Voyce will give another address to-morrow evening when he will refer with the aid of a map to places featured in the news and will show many curios from the islands.