The group consists of seven large islands and no end of small ones, which are dotted about over some 600 miles of sea at a distance of about 400 miles south-east of New Guinea. Great Britain and Germany shared the islands nearly equally until England ceded Samoa to Germany in exchange for territory in the Solomons. Now Great Britain owns the whole group with the exception of Bougainville and Buka. The story of the discovery of the New Hebrides is also interesting. It was first sighted by Spanish explorers, De Quiros and Luis Vaez de Torres, who set sail from Peru in two ships to seek the Great Southern Continent, which tradition told them was somewhere in the South Pacific. De Quiros, as before stated, came across the New Hebrides group, {11} striking first one of the largest islands in the northern part of it. This he named Tierra Australis del Espiritu Santo, thinking possibly it was an enormous tract of land instead of a small island. Fired with ambition and the example of his late _confrère_, Mendana de Meyer, he also attempted to found a colony there, but, like de Meyer, he had to return with his few survivors and write “failure” across his enterprise. Luis de Torres left De Quiros at the New Hebrides, and it was then that he sailed through the Torres Straits, which he named and reported on in 1606. For over a hundred years after the departure of De Quiros from Santo nothing more was heard of the New Hebrides. De Bougainville then came across them, and opened the way for the ubiquitous Captain Cook, who sighted, made charts of, and named the principal islands and headlands. The Spaniards, though the first to settle there, never laid claim to them, and they are now conjointly owned by Great Britain and France. Owing to their proximity to Australia they have received more attention than the other islands, and the Commonwealth of Australia has shown {12} considerable interest in them and inaugurated an emigration scheme to endeavour to wrest from them some of their enormous mineral and vegetable wealth. The results of the past few years show great promise of future prosperity. In fact, in these islands, in particular, there are resources which will repay the labour and capital of any enterprising men, and, according to those who are most fitted to judge and advise, the New Hebrides is a veritable Eldorado. But, until the natives are more civilised and certain taxes are altered, men prefer to give them a wide berth and seek their fortunes in lands less dangerous.