22 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



speed depending on the trade-wind and varying somewhat according to the season 

 of the year. 1 



These conditions were observed as early as the sixteenth century by the Spanish 

 navigatörs; and they early learnt to take advantage of them during their voyages across 

 the Ocean, which, starting from the west coast of Mexico, had as their goal first the Mo- 

 luccas and afterwards the Philippines. Dnring the earlier of these voyages, before any 

 great experience had been gained, they sometimes hit upon one or other of the low coral 

 islands that lie near the southern limit of the sailing-route; but they soon learnt to avoid 

 the danger of striking on one of these reefs by steering due west between 13° and 14° 

 N. lat., a region within which they could also take the greatest advantage of wind and 

 current. So far as is known, this course was afterwards taken without any exception 

 by the Spanish galleons that kept up the Communications between Acapulco and Manila. 

 All the sailing directions that have been preserved prescribe this route; and there was 

 scarcely any possibility of deviating from it, because, as we have said, the trade-wind is 

 constant and storms never occur until one has got near the Mariannes and so got far past 

 the meridian of Hawaii. From this it appears, with a fair degree of certainty, that, if any 

 Spanish ship sailing westward sighted or visited Hawaii, this must have occurred during 

 the time when this navigation was in the experimental stage, i. e. before the course 

 prescribed by experience became fixed. 



Within this period, however, fall most of the voyages during which it has been 

 supposed that Hawaii was discovered. This especially holds good of the voyage of Juan 

 Gaytan, whether this is placed in 1542 or in 1555. We shall therefore proceed to examine 

 the land-discoveries which were made by the Spaniards during this period, within that 

 part of the Ocean that can here come in question. 



As is well known, Magellan came across no oceanic isle north of the Equator ex- 

 cept the Mariannes or, as he called them, the Ladrones (1521). He, however, saw only 

 some of the southernmost of this group: two of the more northerly islands (about 20° 

 N. lat.) were discovered by one of Magellan's lieutenants Gonzalo Gomez de Espinosa, 

 who in 1522 was trying to find a way eastwards from the Moluccas to Panama, anunder- 

 taking which he had to abandon after he had been compelled by a bad storm to turn back, 

 about 42° N. lat. 2 



The expedition which next after Magellan was to seek the same goal as he, that is 

 to say the Spice Islands, viz. that which was under the command of Garcia Joere de 

 Loaysa, did not enrich our knowledge of the northern part of the Pacific Ocean by more 

 than one landfall. 



1 Segelhandbuch fur den Stillen Ocean, hrsg. von der Direktion der Deutschen Seewarte. Hamburg 

 1897, pp. 145 — 148. 



2 The statcments about latitudes and distances in the reports of Espinosa's voyage are undoubtedly not 

 inconsiderably exaggerated. A close analysis of these, however, is unnecessary for the question before us: for 

 this the fact is merely of importance that Espinosa found no land east of the Mariannes. P^or his voyage see: 

 Antonio de Herreka, Historia general de los heclios de los Castellanos en las islas i tierra finne del mar 

 Oceano, Madrid 1601, Decada III, p. 140; Martin Fernandez de Navarrete, Coleccion de los viagcs y descu- 

 brimientos que hicieron por mar los Espafioles, T. IV, Madrid 1837, p. 98; Antonio Galväo, Tratado dos 

 diuersos & desuayrados caminhos . . . (1563), Lond. Hakluyt Soc. 1862, p. 149. 



