NOTE XVI.
The Eddystone Rock and the Simboo of Lieutenant Shortland.—For a considerable time after the re-discovery of the Solomon Islands by the French and English navigators, few islands were better known in the group than Eddystone or Simbo Island. In thus naming this island, however, there has been a singular misconception; and since the name of Simbo has been omitted in the latest Admiralty [chart] (August, 1884) of the group, some explanatory remarks may be of interest.
In August, 1788, Lieutenant Shortland,[420] whilst sailing along the south coasts of the Solomon Group on his voyage from Port Jackson to England via Batavia, approached “a rock which had exactly the appearance of a ship under sail, with her top-gallant sails flying;” and so striking was the resemblance that a signal was made to the supposed vessel. The ships did not approach within three or four miles of this rock. It was named the Eddystone and was placed in lat. 8° 12′ S., bearing S.S.W. a league from two remarkable hills which were named the Two Brothers. A point running south from these two hills was named Cape Satisfaction. Whilst the English ships were off the Eddystone, some natives came to them in their canoes, from whom Shortland learned that they had come from “Simboo,” a place which lay, as they indicated by their gestures, near Cape Satisfaction. In the chart of his discoveries, this officer assigns this name to some land lying east of the Two Brothers near the position of the island at present called Gizo, but it is evident both from his chart and from his narrative that he considered Simboo as the general name for the land to the east of Cape Satisfaction; and Fleurieu, when remarking on his discoveries, made the suggestion that the Simboo of Shortland might prove to be the Choiseul of Bougainville.[421]
[420] The narrative of Lieut. Shortland’s voyage is given in “The Voyage of Governor Phillip to Botany Bay in 1787”: London, 1789.
[421] “Discoveries of the French, 1768-1769, to the S.E. of New Guinea:” London, 1791, p. 196.
In what manner, we may now inquire, have the discoveries of Shortland been identified with the islands that are laid down in the latest charts of this group? For half a century and more the name of Eddystone has been attached, not to a rock such as that to which it was originally given, but to the adjacent volcanic island about four miles in length and about 1100 feet in height; and the name of Cape Satisfaction has been given to the south end of Ronongo which lies ten miles N.N.E. of Eddystone Island. This cape is stated by Shortland to run south from the two remarkable hills which he named the Two Brothers. The island of Ronongo, however, has a long and level summit destitute of peaks; and it is evident that we must look elsewhere for the Cape Satisfaction of Shortland. In Eddystone Island, there are two singular conical hills which might very fitly have been named the Two Brothers, and it will be seen from the sequel that it must have been to the south extremity of this island that the name of Cape Satisfaction was in the first place given. I shall also point out that the original Eddystone rock is represented at the present day by a bare rock which rises out of the sea at a distance of about a third of a mile from the south-west coast of Eddystone Island, and that the Simboo, from which the natives came to visit Shortland, was a diminutive island on the opposite or south-east side of this same island.
When, in July 1792, the French expedition under Dentrecasteaux arrived in this locality, the Eddystone rock was at once recognised by the description of Shortland. . . . “nous aperçûmes”—thus wrote Labillardière[422] the naturalist of the expedition—“le rocher nommé Eddystone. De loin nous le prîmes, comme Shortland, pour un vaisseau à la voile. L’illusion étoit d’autant plus grande, qu’il a à peu près la couleur des voiles d’un vaisseau; quelques arbustes en couronnoient la sommite.” In the Atlas of this voyage (carte 24), this rock is placed off the south-west end of the island at present named Eddystone Island, and exactly in the position of the bare rock above alluded to, which will be found marked in the plan of this island made by the surveying officers of H.M.S. “Lark” in 1882. Lieutenant Malan tells me that this rock at the time of the survey was quite bare of vegetation. It rises in two conical masses from the water between which a boat can pass in calm weather. Although it has a height of 30 feet, it is frequently washed over by the heavier seas. The change in the appearance of this rock, since the visit of Dentrecasteaux in 1792 when its summit was crowned with shrubs, has been probably due to a movement of subsidence which has affected the adjacent coast of Eddystone Island in recent years (vide [below]). To such a change must be attributed the confusion which has arisen with reference to the Eddystone rock; and cartographers, failing to identify it, have applied its name to the adjacent volcanic island on which they have also bestowed the name of Simbo. During his survey of this island in 1882, Lieutenant Oldham ascertained that this name of Simbo actually belonged to a small island bordering its south-east coast with which it was connected by coral reefs. The true native name of Eddystone Island, he found to be Narovo, and in the latest Admiralty [charts] it is thus designated; the name of Simbo is there attached to the small adjacent island which is, I have no doubt, the Simboo from which the natives came, who visited Shortland’s ships in 1788 as they lay off the Eddystone rock. At the present day the larger island of Narovo is but thinly populated, and its inhabitants are under the sway of a powerful chief who resides on the small island of Simbo. There he rules over a warlike and adventurous people who by their head-hunting raids have established the fame of their diminutive island throughout a large portion of the Solomon Group.
[422] “Voyage à la recherche De la Pérouse,” par Labillardière: Paris, 1800: tom i, p. 215.
[In my volume of Geological Observations I have described the movement of subsidence, to which is due the confusion concerning the original Eddystone rock].