26 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



the voyage, 45 days out of 60, gives the same result — and we can therefore with a f airly 

 large degree of probability place the point of separation about 173° E. long., i. e. 27 

 Equatorial degrees west of the meridian which passes between the westernmost of the 

 Hawaiian Islands. The two vessels would tlms have had to sail, against wind and current, 

 about 1600 nautical minutes before they reached the region where, according to For- 

 nander, 1 they could have felt the influence of one of the southerly storms which, under 

 the name of Kona (quite a local phenomenon), during the winter months occasionally 

 occur on the Hawaiian Islands; and we can safely assert that such sailing was quite im- 

 possible for the seamen of that period. But even if Cardenas, or Fuentes, or both, reached 

 Hawaii, yet none of their people, so far as we know, got away from there to tell their 

 countrymen the story of their discovery. From them, therefore, cannot be derived the 

 map which two centuries låter was interpreted as evidence for such a discovery. 



A f airly long time elapsed before anybody followed in Saavedra's track: there was 

 no occasion to repeat his voyage after Spain had ceded her claims on the Moluccas to 

 Portugal by a voluntary agreement, 1529. But during the period next ensuing fall a 

 succession of expeditions, sent out from Mexico with the object of examining the western 

 coast of America to the north, which expeditions we cannot entirely pass över, because 

 amongst them, too, attempts have been made to find points of connection with the history 

 of the discovery of Hawaii. And if we consider the climatic conditions, we must admit 

 that we have before us here phenomena that do not exclude the possibility of such a 

 discovery. 



West of California, in fact, the prevailing winds are north-westerly, not, it is true, 

 with the evenness and strength of the trade-wind, but still sufficiently so to give those 

 sailing on a northerly course considerable difficulties. The current, too, a side current 

 from the North Pacific Gulf-stream Kuro-Sivo, weakened to a "drift", here setstowards 

 the south (see Fig. 5). It is therefore imaginable that, in struggling against these obstacles, 

 a sailing ship steered so far towards the west that it was caught by the north-east trade- 

 wind and was driven by this, against its will, to the neighbourhood of Hawaii. We must 

 therefore see what the historical narratives have to tell us about this. 



The Spaniards' first attempt to penetrate by sea to the north-west along the coast 

 of Mexico dates from 1532. By the orders of Cortes, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza sailed 

 with two ships from Acapulco in the May of that year, but he encountered nothing but mis- 

 fortunes. After he had been driven about by storms in the mouth of the Gulf of Cali- 

 fornia he landed on the Mexican coast; the crews were discontented, and it was only 

 with one ship and a part of his people that Hurtado succeeded in sailing away to continue 

 his voyage of discovery towards the north. The other vessel turned back, but went on shore 



1 Fornander has made the mistake of taking as the basis for his calculation of the place of separation 

 only the distance from America, a distance which he, without access to the original accounts. places at only 

 1000 leagues. Thereby he comes to the result that l 'Saavedra's fleet must have been somewheie within 200 

 miles, probably to the westward and southward, ot the Hawaiian group when the storm overtook it". As the 

 reckoning by sailing with the current, during a time when all means of observing lonjjitude on the sea were 

 lacking, and when even the log was not yet invented, must give a result considerably under the reality, the 

 position must obviously be determined by a proportional division of the distance-figures between two known 

 points, as has been done above. 



