32 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



when close-hauled, this time luffed quite smartly. The twice-repeated soundings gave 

 on the first occasion 4 fathoms, on the second 7. The other ships were warned of the 

 threatening danger by signals. Probably it was this successful manoevre that caused 

 the name of the pilot, Gaspar Rico, to establish itself on the map of the world, where it 

 still struggles with the name of San Bartolomé as a name for the island of Taongi. 1 It was 

 only a bank, however, on other maps rightly marked as such by the name of Baxo de 

 Villalobos. If the supposition that they were in the neighbourhood of San Bartolomé is 

 correct, then Gaspar Rico's or Villalobos' bank is to be sought in some coral reef between 

 that island and the other islands in the Marshall group, possibly the shoal in 12° 53' N. 

 and 162° 30' E., on which an American whaler in 1866 sounded from 12 to 20 fathoms. 2 



On Christmas Day, 1542, land was at length seen. It was an archipelago af small, 

 low, wooded islands. With great difficulty they succeeded in landing on one of them, 

 for there was no anchorage to be found near the coral-bound shores. As many of the in- 

 habitants as could fled in their canoes to another island, leaving only a few women and 

 children hidden in the thickets. These received some small gifts and were treated well 

 by the Spaniards, who took in water and wood but found no other useful products, 

 except fowls, cocoa-nuts, and some other fruits. 



Gaytan says that they gave the islands the name of Los Reyes, which has a certain 

 measure of probability as they lingered in their neighbourhood, probably making attempts 

 to land in different places, until 6 January, the day of the ThreeHolyKings: it was at that 

 time the established custom to name new discoveries after the saint of the day. ButSan- 

 tisteban says that they "thought that the islands were Los Reyes", and Galväo expressly says 

 that they were the same islands as had been discovered by Saavedra and received that 

 name from him. Evidently Villalobos' people regarded the name Los Reyes as standing 

 for the whole group, and they gave special names to special islands: for instance, they 

 called that on which they had first landed Santisteban after S. Stephen's day, 26 De- 

 cember; some other islands were named Corales. 



Whether one accepts Galväo's supposition and, in accordance therewith, places 

 Villalobos' Los Reyes amongst the Western Carolines, or f ollows låter investigators and, 

 perhaps on better grounds, identifies them with some group among the Central Carolines, 3 

 in neither case is Gaytan's latitude, 9° to 11°, burdened with the mistake that La Pérouse 

 thought himself able to establish, but is approximately correct. In order to disprove 

 the hypothesis that Los Reyes is Hawaii it need only be remarked that three of the 

 accounts cited agree in stating that the islands were loiv. 



Before Villalobos arrived at Mindanao, 2 February 1543, there was further dis- 

 covered a number of islands and groups of islands, which received the names of Los Jar- 

 dines, Matalotes and Arrecifes, all situated south of 10° N.; but with these we need not 

 concern ourselves, as they fall outside the subject of this essay. That during this part of 

 the voyage they did not even reach so far north that the southernmost Ladrones came 



1 See for instance Justus Perthes' Taschen- Atlas, 49. Aufl., 1912. 



2 A List of the Iteporteä Dangcrs to Navigation in the Pacific Ocean, Wash. 1866, p. 48. 



3 The Hall Islands according to Meinicke, op. cit., II, p. 356. 



