dialect, and acquired a fluency in it which afterwards stood him and his superiors in good stead.

Volume I ends with Boenechea's own journal of the voyage, and an account of his intercourse with the natives, which was humane and sympathetic on his part and friendly on theirs throughout. The anchorage selected for the frigate on this occasion was in the lagoon at the south-eastern extremity of the island, off Vai-urua, and is now commonly laid down on the charts (but erroneously, as the editor points out) as 'Lángara's Harbour.' The correlation of the Spaniards' narratives with the accounts written by Captain Cook and other members of his expeditions, synchronising so nearly as these did with the three visits of the 'Águila,' is of much interest and quite new to historians. Among matters to which the editor has drawn attention is the baseless accusation recorded by George Forster, who sailed with Cook in the 'Resolution' in 1773-5, against Don Juan de Lángara to the effect that, while in command of the 'Águila' at Tahiti, this distinguished officer hanged four of his crew. This statement was not challenged at the time when Forster's narrative was published; it was repeated from that work in the Missionary Society's 'Voyage of the Duff' a few years afterwards; and has since been copied time after time by the compilers of ignorant works of reference, after the manner of their kind, just as the mythical identity of Tahiti with La Sagitaria' of Quiros has been so reaffirmed. The editor of these volumes not only finds no support for Forster's allegation in any of the documents relating to the 'Águila's' three voyages to Tahiti, but shows conclusively that the misconception arose through faulty interpretation; that Forster himself knew nothing of the language when he wrote the statement down, having then been only a week at the island; that Don Juan de Lángara never commanded the 'Águila,' and, moreover, never visited Tahiti at all.

In the second volume of the set, independent journals of the same voyage are presented, one by a friar who had previously been a pilot; and one by a junior officer who ranked as alferez, or ensign, from a MS. in the Hydrographic Office at Madrid. They are followed by a number of State Papers setting forth the complete

history of the Aguila's' subsequent two voyages, the earlier of which was undertaken with the object of planning a Mission at Tahiti for the conversion of the natives, and the assertion of Spanish sovereignty over the island and its remarkable native community, as by divine right. This expedition had the misfortune to lose its commander, Captain Boenechea, an elderly and kindhearted man, who died suddenly and was buried in the island. The editor, while residing at Tahiti in 1908-9 to familiarise himself with its topography, language, and people, had the satisfaction of locating the plot of ground where Boenechea lies interred; it is unsanctified by any visible memorial, the original wooden cross that marked the spot and commemorated the Spanish occupation (and which, for this latter reason, Captain Cook defaced, in 1777) having long since decayed. To Captain Cook, indeed, these visits of the Spanish ship were full of mystery; there are frequent allusions to them in the journals of his second and third circumnavigations, and in those of his companions, whom they also fairly puzzled.

At her second visit the 'Águila' was accompanied by a hired storeship, the Jupiter.' Her master, one José de Andía y Varela, a Chilean by birth, who was also the owner and navigator of the craft, wrote what is perhaps the best and most intelligent account that we have of the voyage and the transactions at the island. This has been included by the editor in this second volume of 'The Quest, etc.,' together with Boenechea's journal continued by his successor, Lieutenant Tomás Gayangos. Another document is a somewhat banal and fragmentary diary written by the two Franciscan friars whom Boenechea installed at Tahiti as missionaries.

What the friars' diary lacks is, however, amply made good in the third volume, which is almost wholly devoted to the aforementioned Máximo Rodríguez' diary. Máximo was the individual referred to in somewhat scathing terms by Captain Cook as 'Mateema,' in consequence of his having been led away by patriotic sentiment to allege hard things, a good deal wide of the truth if natives' gossip was to be believed, about Tute' himself and the English nation. So says Cook, at least, though Máximo, in a Memorial that he submitted to

the Viceroy De Croix some years after the event, rebuts the Englishman's impeachment. He was selected by the Viceroy Amat to accompany the Franciscan missionaries as interpreter, and acted for them in this capacity in their transactions with the natives. He kept a diary throughout the year 1775, while resident in the islanda document which, as the editor observes, is unique of its kind. Its pages are full of incident, and throw much light upon the social and domestic life of the Tahitians at that period. Eminently do they reveal the gentle, affectionate, generous, and confiding nature of the high chief Vehiatua and his mother O Purani, and the curiously timid character of their cousin and nominal overlord O Tu, with whom the young Spaniard lived on intimate yet reverential terms, in spite of the absolute failure of the friars' mission. The history of these once important but afterwards forgotten expeditions has thus been brought to light in all its details by the labours of the Hakluyt Society, after lying dormant among the archives of the Lonja and other collections of manuscript records for a century and a quarter, a labour that has been much appreciated by historians and geographers in Spain, in France, and in France's dependencyTahiti itself.

In the Book of Duarte Barbosa,' written in the years next preceding 1518, the Society affords another example of the variety of its studies; for, although this work deals, in its later portion, with Barbosa's life and travels in Indian territory, much of the first volume relates to East Africa and Arabia; and the excellent notes supplied to the present edition serve for the identification of numberless ports and coastal tracts of country described by the author in the course of his wanderings, whether from his own observation or from knowledge derived through other persons. His references include Burma, Siam, Malacca, and such parts of the Eastern Archipelago as were known by repute. The first English edition of Barbosa's account was issued by the Hakluyt Society more than fifty years ago, the translation being made by the late Lord Stanley of Alderley, from a MS. in the Spanish language. As time wore on there appeared good reason for desiring a revision of that text, with some

further annotation by an experienced and up-to-date orientalist. The editorial task was therefore entrusted to Mr Longworth Dames, whose official career in the Indian Civil Service extended over many years. He decided to make an entirely new translation from the original Portuguese. The result, as shown by the first volume-for the new edition will occupy two-is in every way admirable, and throws much new light on the rôle and associations of this brother-in-law and companion of Magellan, whose tragic fate befell Barbosa also a few days after him.

'Cathay and the Way thither,' first issued in 1866, was the second work edited for the Society by the late Sir Henry Yule, his first one being an annotated translation of the Mirabilia descripta' of Friar Jordan. It was, as Prof. Cordier remarks, for a long time the vade-mecum of all who were engaged in the study of the Far East as it existed in medieval times, and became the indispensable guide of all those interested in the historical geography not only of China, not only of Central Asia, but of Asia at large. That work has long since been out of print; and, as time advanced, science and especially the geographical researches of fresh travellers added new discoveries in theretofore insufficiently studied countries; so that it became desirable to give a new and augmented edition of Yule's 'Cathay' embodying all the most recent information touching the countries and routes described in it. The late Sir Clements Markham, whose name is identified with so many of the Hakluyt Society's publications and who acted as its honorary secretary for thirty years before he occupied the Presidential chair for twenty more, was much impressed by this need. It was at his suggestion that the task of preparing a new edition was proposed to Prof. Cordier, than whom assuredly no other scholar so eminently qualified to undertake it could have been found.

Yule's Preliminary Essay on the intercourse that took place between China and the Western nations before the sea route round the Cape of Good Hope was known, a mine of erudition in itself, is now embellished under Prof. Cordier's revision by additional notes of exceptional value to historians. Not the least interesting part of the Essay sets forth the evidence of Chinese knowledge of

the Roman Empire, of Byzantine history, and of the intercourse between the Arab nations and China, partly by land routes through Persia, but largely by means of Chinese junks regularly visiting towns on the Euphrates and the Tigris in the fifth century and later, even to the vicinity of ancient Babylon. About the beginning of the 15th century of our era the maritime trade to the Persian Gulf in Chinese bottoms seems to have given place to Arab ships sailing to the Far East. The The penetration of both regions by the Portuguese, which began about 1514, may have determined, though it did not initiate, this change.

The second volume of 'Cathay' contains the Travels of Friar Odoric of Pordenone; and the third reprints letters and reports of various missionary wanderers who travelled across Asia, extracts from Rashíd-ud-Din's history of the Mongols, and the 'Recollections' of Marignolli, many of which are exceedingly quaint, if not exactly informative. The fourth and final volume contains the Travels of Ibn Batuta, with many admirable comments and elucidations, and closes with the Journey of Benedict Goës from Agra to Cathay, undertaken by command of King Philip III of Portugal, in 1602, to set at rest sundry doubts concerning the position and identity of China, and to open a way for connecting the Christian missions already settled in that country with those established in India, by a daring and most difficult route across Afghanistan and the Pamir region into Eastern Turkestan. It was fitting that the distinguished sinologist who edited Odoric's narrative for the 'Recueil de Voyages' (tome x, 1891) should have consented to repeat the task in English for the Hakluyt Society.

The above-mentioned works are among those recently issued by the Council, and are quoted as merely a few examples-as Hakluyt said of his own collection-of 'many rare and worthy monuments which long haue lien miserably scattered in mustie corners, and retchlesly hidden in mistic darknesse, and were very like for the greatest part to haue bene buried in perpetuall obliuion,'

but are now rendered easily accessible to readers. But