These straits Lieutenant Shortland judged to be between four and five leagues in length, and about seven or eight miles broad, running in a north-west direction; and, conceiving himself to be the first navigator who had sailed through them, he ventured to give them the name of Shortland's Straits. On comparing his account with the narrative of M. Bougainville, which he had not then by him, there seems to be reason to suspect that this is the same passage through which that navigator sailed at the latter end of June, 1768; and that the island supposed to be called Simboo, is the same which was then named Choiseul Island. To corroborate this suspicion, M. Bougainville's description of the canoes and persons of the natives agrees entirely, as far as it goes, with that given by Mr. Shortland*. A small difference in longitude affords the chief reason for doubting the identity of the passage, which, should it be proved, will not detract at all from the merit of the latter navigator, who proceeded entirely by his own attention and sagacity, in a sea unknown to himself and those who were with him, which, if not wholly unexplored, had not, however, been surveyed before with equal minuteness of observation. [* Some of the vessels indeed were larger. "Il y avoit vingt-deux hommes dans la plus grande, dans les moyennes, huit ont dix, deux ou trois dans les plus petites. Ces pirogues paroissoient bien faites; elles ont I'avant et I'amere fort relévés, etc. Ils portent des bracelets, et des plaques au front et sur le col. J'ignore de quelle matiere, elle m'a paru etre blanche." Boug. Chap. v. p. 264.]