K.UNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 57. N:0 4- 7 



instead of La Maso La Mesa, and t hat the fourth island has a name La Disgraciada which 

 is missing in Roberts' map. 1 



Cook's next successors manifestly shared his conception of the group as a land 

 distinct from Hawaii. Captain Nathaniel Portlock says: 2 — 



In the lat. of 3° 33' N., long. 116° 35', we found a current setting to the eastward, at the råte 

 of one mile and a half per hour, in which I changed our own course from NNW. to NW x W . . . How- 

 ever, I was under the necessity of keeping well to the eastward, that we might be enabled to fetch 

 the islands Los Majos, which, should they afford good water, and some other refreshments, may be 

 hereafter of the greatest importance to any ships coming round Cape Horn to the western coast of 



1. Part of Captain Cook's General chnrt. 



America, as they lie directly in the track for that coast, and conseqnently are more conveniently 

 situated than the Sandwich Islands. 



But the search for the islands was not crowned with success; and Portlock continues: — 



Towards noon [on 7 May 1786] the wind inclining more to the northward, we steered NNW., 

 in order that we might get into the latitude of Los Majos . . . On the 12th, being in the latitude of 

 20° l' South [read: North], and 134° 11' long., I expected to ha ve fallen in with the Los Majos islands, 

 as we were now exactly in the centre of them, according to the chart just mentioned [Captain Cook's 



1 Theso differences make it probable that Cook and Roberts did not copy direct from the Anson chart, 

 but from some not very exact hand-drawn copy thereof, possibly the manuscript map that Roberts says he bad 

 got from A. Dalrymple, and in accordance with which he bad drawn the west coast of Califomia on his 

 general map. 



2 Purtlock, A Voyage round the World, Lond. 1789, p. 54. 



