Mendana sent home to the Spanish Government brilliant accounts of his discoveries, and solicited the means of prosecuting them still further. War and other engagements prevented the ministry from attending to his requests till the year 1595, when he obtained the command of an expedition having for its object the colonization of St. Christopher. He sailed from Callao in April with four ships carrying four hundred men: his wife, Isabel de Barretos, and three of his brothers-in-law, accompanied him. Pedro Fernandez de Quiros, of whom we shall afterwards speak more particularly, was the pilot of the fleet. They stopped at Paita, where they watered and enlisted four hundred additional men, and on the 16th of June finally started in quest of the long-lost islands. A month afterwards, being in latitude 11° south, Mendana discovered a group of three islands, to which he gave a collective name as well as individual names. He called them Las Marquesas de Mendoça, in honor of the Marquis of Mendoça, a Spaniard of distinction. They are still known as the Marquesas Islands. The natives manifested a remarkably thievish disposition, and received several rounds of grape for pilfering the jars of the watering party who had gone ashore. Though the chronicler draws a comparison in speaking of the women, he yet skilfully contrives to compliment all parties mentioned. He says, "Very fine women were seen here. Many thought them as beautiful as those of Lima, but whiter and not so rosy; and yet there are very beautiful at Lima. They have delicate hands, genteel body and waiste, exceeding much in perfection the most perfect of Lima; and yet there are very beautiful at Lima. The temperament, health, strength, and corpulency of these people tell what is the climate they live in: clothes could well be borne with night and day; the sun did not molest much; there fell some small showers of rain. Our people never perceived lightning or dew, but great dryness, so that, without hanging up, they found dry in the morning the things which were left wet on the ground at night." A singular fruit was noticed, which the men eat green, roasted, boiled, and ripe. It had neither stone nor kernel, and the Spaniards called it blanc-mange. They likewise admired another fruit "inclosed in prickles like chestnuts, and which resembled chestnuts in taste, but was much bigger than six chestnuts together." Mendana ordered a grand mass to be said, during which the islanders remained on their knees with great silence and attention.