Page:The Boy Travellers in Australasia.djvu/76

52 below the horizon, and the Southern Cross, that magnificent constellation of the antarctic heavens, came into view. Frank regretted that they could not look at it with a powerful telescope, when he learned from the captain of the Pera that there is a brilliant cluster of stars in the centre of the Cross, invisible to the unassisted eye, and only revealed by a strong glass. Farther south their attention was absorbed by the Magellan clouds, two nebulae of stars so densely packed together and so far away that they resemble light fleecy clouds more than anything else.

In a direct line it is about two thousand miles from Honolulu to the outermost of the Marquesas group. The log of the Pera showed a run of 2180 miles, and on the morning of the sixteenth day of the voyage the lookout gave the welcome announcement that land was in sight. Colonel Bush had given directions for the yacht to proceed direct to Nookaheeva Bay, the best harbor in the Marquesas group, and consequently the travellers contented themselves with distant views of the outer islands that lay in their course. The islands are evidently of volcanic origin, as they present high peaks rising two or three thousand feet, and in some places their sides are almost precipitous. With a glass, or even with the unaided eye, it was easy to perceive that the sides of the mountains and the valleys enclosed between them were thickly clothed with tropical trees and undergrowth, that extended down close to the water's edge.

Frank made the following historical note concerning the islands:

"They were discovered in 1595 by a Spanish navigator, Mendaña de Neyra, who named them Las Marquesas de Mendoza, in honor of the Marquis de Mendoza, Viceroy of Peru. They are sometimes known as the Mendaña Archipelago, in honor of their discoverer; and they are also called the Washington Islands, having been so named by Captain Ingraham of the American ship Hope, who visited them in 1791. They are generally divided into two groups, the Northern and Southern, and the Island of Nookaheeva, where we are going, is in the Northern group. Altogether there are thirteen of the islands, with an area of less than five hundred square miles and a population of about ten thousand.

"Properly the name Marquesas belongs to the Southern group only, as they alone were visited by Mendaña; the Northern group was not known until the American captain discovered it, and therefore we shall insist that they are the Washington Islands."

For the description of what they saw at Nookaheeva we will rely upon Fred's account.