In this short chapter, before leaving the subject of the old manuscript maps of Australia, and devoting the remaining pages of my book to actual voyages of discovery, I shall refer once more to the importance of the Lusitano-Spanish planispheres of the Dieppese school of cartography* because most of those documents, becoming the property of French map-makers, were used in various endeavours which were made to induce European sovereigns to colonize the Great South Land.

[Most of these maps were made at Dieppe; all of them were made in the north of France.]

In the preceding pages I have only described the most important of these manuscript charts.  The following is the list in chronological order of all the specimens known to exist:—­

1.  The Dauphin Chart 1530-36 2.  N. Valiard’s (so-called) 1539-49 3.  Jean Roze’s 1542 4.  The Henri II. (of France) 1546 5.  P. Desceliers’ 1550 6.  G. Le Testu’s 1555 7.  Desliens’ 1566

CHAPTER IX.

MENDANA AND SARMIENTO DISCOVER THE SOLOMONS.

With the hope of making fresh discoveries and in pursuance of their object to establish a trade between the Spice Islands and their newly acquired colonies on the western shores of America, the Spaniards continued to send out expeditions whenever an opportunity offered.

Ever widening their sphere of action, they now looked forward to the southern regions of the Pacific Ocean as the land of promise, the El Dorado of their dreams; Saavedra’s Isla de Oro and Retez’s and Gaspar Rico’s discoveries were not to be forgotten either.

It is in those regions that the legends and traditions of the times placed the islands from which King Solomon derived the gold and other treasures that served for the decoration of the temple of Jerusalem.

These legends, founded partly on historical events, and partly coupled with traditions handed down in the Royal Incarial families of Peru, seem to have given a powerful stimulus to Spanish enterprise in the South Pacific Ocean.

The hopes they gave rise to were, in addition, strengthened by the desire to discover the Great Southern Continent in a more effectual way than had hitherto been done:  these prospects originated all the expeditions which, leaving the shores of South America, followed one after another in the same wake.

The Spaniards were now firmly established in Peru and it came to pass that a certain Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, a Spanish officer of unusual erudition in maritime and other matters, having collected and translated many historical documents, or guipus,* relating to the Incas, became aware that one of them, their wisest and greatest monarch, named Tupac Yupanqui, had made an extensive voyage by sea towards the setting sun, which lasted over twelve months, bringing back much treasure from the countries he had visited.  During the course of this voyage Tupac had discovered two large islands, named Nina-Chumpi and Hahua-Chumpi, or Fire-Island and Outer-Island.