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Updated: May 31, 2025
In May, the expedition left Santa Ysabel, and after sighting many more islands of the group, they cast anchor off the coast of a large island which Gallego named Guadalcanal, after his own native place near Seville. On the 19th and 22nd, Sarmiento and Mendana, accompanied by Ortega, made excursions into the interior, ascending a high mountain and enjoying a magnificent panorama.
It was only by diligent instruction that they were made available to historical purposes; and this instruction was so far neglected after the Conquest, that the ancient annals of the country would have perished with the generation which was the sole depositary of them, had it not been for the efforts of a few intelligent scholars, like Sarmiento, who saw the importance, at this critical period, of cultivating an intercourse with the natives, and drawing from them their hidden stores of information.
On the 7th January, 1587, Cavendish entered the Strait of Magellan, and in the narrowest part of it received on board his ships one-and-twenty Spaniards and two women, the sole survivors of the colony founded three years previously, under the name of Philippeville, by Captain Sarmiento.
To the extreme right of the composition is seen the back of the easel and the canvas on which he is engaged; and beyond it spalette, pausing to converse, and to observe the effect of his performance. In the centre stands the little Infanta Maria Margarita, taking a cup of water from a salver which Doña Maria Augustina Sarmiento, maid of honour to the queen, presents kneeling.
His account stops with the Spanish invasion: for this story, Sarmiento felt, might be safely left to his contemporaries who acted a part in it, but whose taste and education had qualified them but indifferently for exploring the antiquities and social institutions of the natives.
Presently the men at the next table got up and their place was taken by another group, among which Kit noted Francisca Sarmiento and her relations. He thought they looked surprised, but they saluted him politely, and soon afterwards the girl, who was nearest, looked round. "You have courage, señor," she remarked in a meaning tone.
I see Señorita Sarmiento is not engaged and she dances well." "I doubt if Dona Francisca would care to dance with me again." "Ah," said Alvarez, "one should not be too modest! Francisca is a politician, but she is a woman. Perhaps you found she is not on my side?" "I imagined she was not." Alvarez shrugged. "Well, I do not fight with women, although they are sometimes dangerous.
To give still further authenticity to his work, Sarmiento travelled over the country, examined the principal objects of interest with his own eyes, and thus verified the accounts of the natives as far as possible by personal observation.
However, no land being sighted after many days, Mendana became alarmed and requested Sarmiento to resume charge of the navigation. He did so, and ordered the course to be shaped W.S.W., announcing at the same time that land would be sighted on the next day, and this proved correct. An island was discovered which received the name of Nombre-de-Jesus.
But Sarmiento happily confines himself to the mere statement of traditional fables, without the chimerical ambition to explain them.
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