24 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



Toribio Alonso de Salazar, who took över the command of his flagship after 

 the deatli of Loaysa, found, 21 August 1526, in 14° 2' N. lat., an island to which he gave 

 the name of San Bartolomé. There is no doubt that by this must be understood Taongi, 1 

 the most northerly of the Ratack Islands, the position of which is now given as 14° 45' 

 N. lat. and 169° 15' E. long. 2 The Spaniards could not land on this island, so they con- 

 tinued sailing westwards until, on 4 September, they reached Guam, the southernmost 

 of the Mariannes. Here, to their great surprise, they encountered a fellow-countryman, 

 Gonzalo de Vigo, who had deserted from Espinosa's vessel and had then been on the 

 islands for four years. He had learnt the language of the natives, and through him the 

 Spaniards obtained a fairly correct knowledge of the geography of the islands: they are, 

 he said, thirteen in number situated in a straight line between 13° and 19° N. lat. 3 



Of the four vessels with which Loaysa succeeded in sailing through the Straits of 

 Magellan and entering, 26 May 1526, the Pacific Ocean, it was only the flagship, "Sta 

 Maria de la Victoria", that reached the Mariannes. The other were separated from him 

 by a storm so early as 1 June, at 47° 30' S. lat. One of these, the "San Lesmes", was löst, 

 and no one has learnt anything of its fäte; 4 the second, "Sta Maria del Parral", reached 

 Mindanao several months låter than the "Victoria", after which both the ship and the 

 greater part of the crew came to grief on an island north of Celebes; the third ship, the 

 patache "Santiago", owing to lack of provisions, did not venture out över the broad 

 ocean but hugged the mainland of America and finally, in July 1526, put in at Tehuan- 

 tepec on the coast of Mexico, recently conquered by the Spaniards. By this means Fer- 

 dinand Cortes obtained news of Loaysa' s expedition, to which he had already been or- 

 dered in a letter from the Emperor to give assistance; at the same time he was to try 

 from Mexico to get into communication with the Moluccas and there make enquiries 

 as to any surviving followers of Magellan. This gave occasion to the first expedition of 

 the Spaniards across the Ocean from east to west. We shall now give a brief account of 

 the events which occurred during this expedition. 



Alvaro de Saavedra sailed from Sihuantejo on 31 October 1527 with a squadron 

 of three vessels. After making 350 leagues, says one account of the voyage, there was 

 seen, in 11° N. lat., an island on which they did not succeed in landing; but of this disco- 

 very there is no mention in the log-book kept on Saavedra's vessel, 5 which merely says 

 that, on 28 November (when they had covered about 700 leagues), the Admiral sailed 40 



1 C. E. Meinicke, Die Inseln des Stillen Oceans, Th. II, Lpz. 1876, p. 327. 



2 Beigham, Index, p. 152. 



3 On Loaysa's expedition see: "Derrotero'' by Hernando de la Torre in Navarrete's Coleccion, T. V, 

 pp. 241 — 313; and a relation by Andres de Urdaneta to the King of Spain, dated 26 February 1537, ibid., pp. 

 401 — 439; reprinted after a not perfectly correct transcript in Coleccion de documentos incditos rel. al descu- 

 brimiento ... en America y Oceania, T. V, Madrid 1866, pp. 1 — 67. 



4 Navarrete, altliough on somewhat weak grounds, hints at the possibility that it stranded on the then 

 unknown Marquesas Islands. See Coleccion, T. V, p. 182. 



5 The original documents concerning Saavedra's voyage are furnished by the log-book here named: 

 "Relation del viage que hizo Alvaro de Saavedra desde la costa Occidental de Nueva Espana å las islas de 

 Maluco, estä sacada del libro que trajo Francisco Granado, escribano de la armada" (Navarrete, Coleccion, 

 T. V, pp. 465—475); and also by two reports of Vicente de Nåpoles (ibid., pp. 476—486; and Coleccion de 

 documentos inédilos, T. V, pp. 68 — 96). These sources are in several respects divergent from one another; I 

 follow the first-named, which for the voyage itself seems me the most trustworthy. 



