42 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWA1IAN ISLANDS. 



two sliips, having on board 300 men, soldiers and supplies. He arrives at Cebu on 20 

 August. {Col. de doc. ined. 2 a Ser. III, pp. 358, 365. Bl. & Rob. III, p. 130. Colin. 

 I, p. 154.) 



1568. The "San Pablo", under the command of Felipe de Salcedo, sails from 

 Cebii on 1 July. It was löst in the Ladrones during a storm. All the people escaped 

 and came back to the Philippines in a barque, which they made from a small boat. "It 

 was a marvellous thing that 132 people should come in it, as they did." (Bl. & Rob. 

 III, pp. 29, 31, 44.) 



Alvaro de Mendana, after sailing with two ships from Callao, 19 November 1567, 

 and låter malung his famous discovery of the Solomon Islands, left those islands on 11 

 August in the following year to begin his return voyage via Mexico. On 6 September 

 the Line was crossed at about 170 E. long. A few days låter the}^ landed on a little island 

 in 8 V 2 ° N. lat., which received the name of San Martin, but which the pilot maintained 

 to be the San Bartolomé (certainly to be identified with some island in the Ralick chain); 

 and on 3 October another island was discovered, which received the name of San Fran- 

 cisco after the name of the saint of the following day. In the different narratives of the 

 voyage its position is given as 19 1 j.°, 20°, or 21° N. lat., a position which fits in with the 

 Hawaiian Islands tolerably well; but all hope of here finding at length these long-sought- 

 for islands disappears in the presence of the unanimous statement of the narratives that 

 it was a little, low, uninhabited island, enclosing a lagoon, and surrounded by reefs on 

 all sides. Mendana sailed round the island in hope of being able to find an anchorage 

 and a supply of water; but the plan of landing was abandoned because on the sandy shore 

 they saw only bushes and sea-fowl and no sign of fresh water. It is generally assumed 

 that Mendana's island is the present Wake, again discovered in 1796, and according to 

 the latest reports, situated in 19° 15' N. and 166° 30' E., 1 thus nearly 40° west of the southern 

 point of Hawaii. From there they steered NE., till the two ships, which had hitherto 

 sailed together, separated on 15 October. Shortly after this a dreadful storm broke out, 

 which compelled Mendana to cut away the mainmast on his vessel and threatened him 

 with complete destruction. After that he proceeded extremely slowly, principally sail- 

 ing towards the east. The highest latitude he reached seems to have been about 32°. 

 It was not until 19 December that he saw the coast of California in about 30°, and on 23 

 January 1569 Mendana put in at the harbour of Santiago de Colima. Three days låter 

 his consort arrived, under the command of Pedro Sarmiento de Gamboa, who had 

 been supposed to have been löst during the severe storm. Neither of them had seen 

 any land between the island of San Francisco and the coast. of California. The Iwpothesis 

 maintained by a number of writers that Mendana had discovered Hawaii is therefore 

 untenable. (The Discovery of the Solomon Islands by Alvaro de Mendana. Ed. by Lord 

 Amherst of Hackney and Basil Thomson. Lond., Hakluyt Soc. 1901.) 



1 Brigliam {Index, p. 166) states that the island is 20 to 25 niiles long and 8 foot high, and adds: 

 "When I saw it from the masthead of the ship '"Oracle", in 1865, it was covered with a low and sparse 

 vegetation." In July 1898, the island was annexed by the United States. 



