CHAPTER I. 

 Cooks Discovery and the Dispntes as to its Priority. 



The 20tli of January, 1778, the day 011 which James Cook first landed on one of the 

 islands where, a year låter, 14 February 1779, he was to end his glorious life, can safely 

 be characterized as one of the landmarks in the history of geographical discovery, not 

 only because of the intrinsic importance of the discovery, but also, and to a still greater 

 extent, because this discovery inaugurated the investigation of the maritime area, the 

 northern part of the Pacific Ocean, which more than any other, the Polar Seas excepted, 

 had remained unknown in its essential features to the peoples of Europé. 



That Cook was the first European who beheld the Hawaiian Archipelago, or the 

 Sandwich Islands, as he himself called them, began to be disputed not long af ter his death. 

 It was alleged that these Islands had been discovered, and even visited, by Spanish 

 navigatörs as earl}' as the sixteenth century and hadjbeen marked by them — in all essen- 

 tials correctly — on the map of the world. This assertion has since been repeated with 

 greater or lesser definiteness by practically all writers on the history of geography, by 

 — to mention only some of the most eminent — Alexander von Humboldt, James 

 Burney, J. G. Kohl, O. Peschel, Carl E. Meinicke, Sophus Ruge, Henry Harrisse, Elisée 

 Reclus, Siegmund Giinther, Konrad Kretschmer, and Edward Heawood. Tlius supported 

 by the best authorities, the statement has been regarded as an established fact; and as 

 such it is found wherever one seeks for information as to the older history of the Hawaiian 

 Islands in the literature of our day. On a previous occasion 1 I have expressed a differ- 

 ent opinion and tried to show that no valid evidence can be adduced against the prior- 

 ity of Cook's discovery. A great deal of material which has come to my knowledge af ter 

 I had expressed this view gives me occasion to take up the matter afresh for fuller 

 examination. 



Let us first see how Cook himself conceived the matter. He says: -' — 



Had the Sandwich Islands been discovered at an early period, by the Spaniards, there is little 

 doubt that they would have taken advantage of so excellent a situation and have made use of Atooi 

 [Kauai], or some other of the islands, as a refreshing place to the ships, that sail annually from Aca- 

 pulco for Manilla. They he almost midway between the first place and Guam, one of the Ladrones, 



1 See the author's work Be franska sjöfärderna till Söderhafvet i början af adcrtonde seklet, Stock 

 holm 1900, pp. 218 & 414. 



2 A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean. 3d ed., Vol. II, Loiul. 1785, p. 251. 



