4 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



which is at present their only port in traversing this väst ocean; and it would not have been a week's 

 sail out of their common route, to have touched at them; which could have been done, without run- 

 ning the least hazard of losing the passage, as they are sufficiently within the verge of the Easterly 

 trade-wind. 



From this it appears, first and foremost, that Cook had no knowledge of any ear- 

 lier Spanish discovery, real or factitious, and that he was not guided in his enterprise by 

 any such discovery; nor has his sincerity in this respect been questioned by anybody 

 to whose opinion any importance can be attached. Further we assuredly make no mis- 

 take if we detect behind the words of the great explorer a certain astonishment that 

 the existence of the Sandwich Archipelago could so long remain unknown; and this 

 impression is inevitably deepened when we consider the position of the Islands midway 

 between the routes which had been regularly traversed by the Spanish galleons for more 

 than two hundred years. This circumstance, at first sight inexplicable, has to some 

 extent contributed to produce a doubt as to whether the Islands really did escape the 

 notice of the Spanish navigatörs, and strengthened the force of the evidence which people 

 have fancied they could find for an opposite opinion. 



If, therefore, it cannot be doubted that Cook's exploit was independent of European 

 predecessors, it may nevertheless be imagined that he owed something to help from other 

 quarters. On his arrival at Hawaii he found, to his great surprise, that the language 

 spöken there differed to only a slight extent from that which he had heard on Tahiti, and 

 with which some of his followers had made themselves sufficiently familiar to permit of 

 mutual understanding without any excessive difficulties. Between the manners and 

 customs of the people on Hawaii and on Tahiti he was also able to observe manifest points 

 of agreement. Cook was fully aware of the affinity of the Polynesian tribes and in the 

 main stated correctly the limits of their distribution: from New Zealand in the south to 

 Hawaii in the north, from Easter Island in the east to the New Hebrides in the west. 1 



The origin of the Polynesians and their wanderings within the immense area över 

 which they are now spread, has, as is well known, been the subject of extensive specula- 

 tions, and very different opinions have been expressed on the subject. In particular 

 it has been assumed that Hawaii was peopled from Tahiti; and it has been thought that 

 evidence in favour of this can be found, not only in the above-mentioned linguistic and 

 ethnological resemblances, but also in certain Hawaiian folk-tales which speak of an 

 emigration from Tahiti and a communication proceeding down to låter times between the 

 two groups of islands - — a communication which, despite the great distance, is even 

 alleged to have been "lively". 2 On this, however, it is to be remarked, first, that the 

 word Tahiti - — or, more correctly, Kahiki 3 — in the Hawaiian language is said to mean, not 



1 A Voyage to the Pacific Ocean, Vol. II, p. 251. Cook confines himself to his own observations and 

 admits the possibility of corrections on the basis of future investigations. The only mistake which, from the 

 standpoint of the present day, we can attribute to him is that, as regards the New Hebrides, he has trepassed 

 on the sphere of the Melanesians. 



2 Kr. Bahnson, Etnografien, D. I, Köbenhavn 1900, p. 51. 



3 Meinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans, Th. II, Lpz. 1876, p. 434. Cf. Nathaniel B. Emerson, 

 Unwritten Literature of Hawaii (Bureau of Amer. Ethnol., Bull. 38, Wash. 1909, p. 17 note). 



