18 . DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWATIAN ISLANDS. 



the Hawaiian legends speak, belonged to the crews of the two vessels which, in the course of 

 the expedition under Alvaro de Saavedra, 1527, were separated from the flagship and 

 never heard of again. 1 Henry A. Peirce supposes that Diego Hurtado de Mendoza 

 was the man who, in the year 1532, had suffered shipwreck on Hawaii and had given rise 

 to the tradition. 2 That both assumptions are incorrect shall be shown further on. Other 

 dates are also given: for instance, Manley Hopkins places the date of one visit of for- 

 eigners at about 1600 and another at some låter time, perhaps 1620; :! and William T. 

 Brigham revives the theory, rejected by Fleurieu, that one of Mendaha's vessels was 

 stranded on Hawaii (1596). 4 



The latest date for a supposed Spanish visit would seem to be the beginning of the 

 eighteenth century: Fornander believed that he could interpret an Hawaiian song about 

 a famous chieftain Kualii, who would seem to have died sometime before 1730, ascon- 

 taining hints that "some Spanish galleons, passing by the islands, had picked up Kualii 

 and his company while fishing off the Oahu coast, carried theni to Acapulco, and brought 

 them back on the return trip". 5 



Finally a Spanish authority, the Hydrographical Department (Deposito Hidrogra- 

 jico) in Madrid, in an official report of 21 February 1865, expressed the following opinion 

 on the matter: 6 — 



By all the documents that have been examined, it is demonstrated that that discovery dates from 

 the year 1555, or 223 years before Captain Cook surveyed those islands; and that the discoverer was 

 Juan Gaetano or Gaytan, who gave names to the principal islands of that archipelago. It is true that 

 no document has been found in which Gaytan himself certifies to this fact, but there exist data which 

 collectively form a series of proofs sufficient for beheving it to be so. The principal one is an old manu- 

 script chart, registered in these archives as anonymous, and in which the Sandwich Islands are laid 

 down under that name, but which also contains a note declaring the name of the discoverer and date of 

 the discovery, and that he called them I sias de Mesa (Table Islands). There are, besides, other islands, 

 situated in the same latitude, but 10° farther east, and respectively named La Mesa (the Table); 

 La Desgraciada (the Unf ortunate ) ; Olloa, or Los Monges (the Monks). 7 The chart appears to be a 



1 Fornander, An Account of the Polynesian Race, Vol. II, Lond. 1880, p. 108. 



2 Peirce, Early Discoveries of the Hawaiian Islands, San Francisco 1880. 



3 Hopkins, Hawaii, Lond. 1862, p. 81. 



i Brigham, Index to the Islands of the Pacific Ocean, Honolulu 1900, p. 6. — As a curiosity may be 

 raentioned the following utterance of Graf Anrep-Elmpt, which literally teeras with inaccuracies : "Die von 

 Mendona 1567 festgestellte geographische Lage der Inseln war die der jetzigen des Inselreiches. Seine Namen flir 

 dieselbeu waren 1) die grösste derselben "La Mesa" för Hawaii; es bedeutet das "Tafelland" — höchst charak- 

 teristisch fur die Lage der Insel und die Umgebung ihrer drei vulkanischen Erhebungen. 2) Die "La Disgra- 

 ciada" fur Maui, bedeutet die "Unglucklicke". 3) Die "Los Mönjas" fur Oahu, Molokai und Lanai, bedeutet 

 die "3 Mönche", 4) die "Los Vicinas" fur Kauai und Nihau, bedeutet "die Nachbarn" und sind von Mendona 

 in ihrer genauen jetzigen Lage angegeben worden, während die vorgehenden Inseln eine Differenz nach Osten 

 ausweisen" {Die Sandwich-Inseln öder das Inselreich von Haivaii, Lpz. 1885, p. 162). Similar disregard of 

 orthographical and historical exactitude characterizes the author's other opinions, so far as I have thought it 

 worth while to follow them after the unappetizing specimen quoted. 



■ r> Fornander, l. c, II, p. 287: ef. Ibid., p. 280 note. 



G The report is reproduced by Fornander in an authenticated English translation (J. c, II, pp. 361 — 

 363). — I have corrected above some of the obvious mistakes in the names, of which one may assume that 

 the Spanish autlior was innocent. 



7 This is without doubt the same map as that which Ricardo Beltran y Rözpide {La Polinesia, Madrid 

 1884, p. 29) mention as existing in the Direcciön de Hidrografia: "otra muy curiosa carta manuscrita de fines 

 del siglo XVIII en la que se marcan las islas Sandwich con la siguiente inscripciön: Estas islas fueron descu- 

 biertas por Juan de Gaytan en 1555 y las llamö islas de Mesa''. This description shows that the map partly 



