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In 1595 he undertook another voyage, keeping a more southerly course, and discovered the Queen Charlotte Islands; the largest of these, Nitendi, he called Santa Cruz, and gave the fitting name of Graciosa Bay to the lovely cove in which he anchored. He tried to found a colony here, but failed. Mendana died in Santa Cruz, and his lieutenant, Pedro Vernandez de Quiros, led the expedition home.
At daylight one morning, a week after leaving Bouka Island, the Mahina was lying becalmed off Nitendi, one of the islands of the Santa Cruz group, and just as Barry came on deck for his coffee the look-out called to Barradas "Sail ho, sir, right astern!" Barry ran aloft, and there six or seven miles astern was a schooner-rigged steamer. Barradas, who had followed him, knew her at once.
The natives, when carefully and patiently trained, work quite as well as low-class whites, and have proved themselves capable of more than plantation work. It was a bright morning when we entered the lovely Graciosa Bay on Nitendi. The island had a much more tropical aspect than those of the New Hebrides, and the vegetation seemed more varied and gayer in colour.
On the 17th March the Astrolabe at length issued from amongst the terrible reefs encircling Vanikoro. D'Urville had intended to survey Tamnako, Kennedy, Nitendi, and the Solomon Islands, where he hoped to meet with traces of the survivors from the shipwreck of the Boussole and the Astrolabe.
It is surprising how much inferior physically the women of Nitendi are to the men. The men are among the best made people I ever saw, while the women are the poorest. The dress of the women consists of large pieces of tapa, worn around the hips and over the head, and a third piece is sometimes used as a shawl.
Put ashore at Nitendi from a Hobart Town whaler for mutinous conduct, he had disassociated himself for ever from civilisation.
I had a good opportunity to go there, as the steam yacht Southern Cross of the Anglican mission in Melanesia was expected to stop at Vila on her way to the Solomons. She touched at the Santa Cruz island of Nitendi going and returning, and could therefore drop me and take me up again after about six weeks.
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