72 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



closely", it is further said, "with what was reported to the King and the Council [of the 

 Indies] with regard to the futile endeavour to sail from 15° lat., where the Ladrones are 

 situated, up to 35°, where the Gold and Silver Islands are said to lie, namely that they 

 might have been driven up to 90°". And, perhaps as a side-hit at Fernando de los Rios 

 and his speculations, it is added that "such an opinion may well be excused in a person 

 who has seen nothing and understands nothing, for it is quite another thing to have studied 

 cosmography and navigation and to have experience; and in this and in other things we 

 have f ound how misled we have been in the matter of sailing from Acapulco to Japan, 

 for the log-book shows clearly that, if they had kept on the appointed course, they would 

 have run the risk of missing their objective and not reached Japan at all". 



On 7 June it was resolved in a ship's council that they should seek land where ver 

 they could find it, even if it were in 50° lat.; and two days låter they made the east coast 

 of Nippon in about 38°, af ter which Japanese seamen piloted the ship to Urangava (Uraga 

 at the entrance to the Bay of Yedo). From here the commander went on ån embassy 

 to the Emperor, who received the Spaniards well and granted them the requested per- 

 mission to survey the harbours. This survey was in fact carried oub by the Captain on 

 the east coast up to 40° lat., and by the pilot Lorenzo Vasquez on the south coast: a chart 

 was drawn up on the basis of these surveys in four copies, and one of these was handed 

 över to the Emperor as a gift. 1 



While the Spaniards were busy with this hydrographical work, the English and 

 the Dutch began to intrigue against them, disclosed to the Emperor the principal object 

 of their voyage, and sought to frighten him with the Spaniards' lust of conquest. They 

 also told the story of the Portuguese captain who had visited the Gold and Silver Islands, 

 but could not state in what degree of latitude, in what point of the compass, or at what 

 distance from Japan these islands were situated. The Emperor answered haughtily 

 that he had no fear, even if the whole of Spain should come against him; that if the islands 

 were under his crown he should know to defend them; and that if they were not, it was 

 high time to search for them, and in any case he was the man who gained advantage 

 from the discovery; but as the statement about the position of the islands was so uncertain, 

 it would be pure chance if they were found. 2 The intrigue had no effect therefore; and 

 Vizcaino could unimpeded steer out from Urangava, on 16 September 1612, on the actual 

 voyage of discovery. 



On the 25th of the same month they had sailed more than 200 miles from Japan 

 on the alleged latitude of the islands, and should thus be on the place where, according 

 to the charts, they were situated; but no land was to be seen. They diminished the 

 latitude to 34° without any result, though the weather was clear and they keptasharp 

 look-out from deck and mast-heads. They thought they could find signs of the nearness 

 of land, however, in thick bands of floating pumice, "which the ship could scarcely 



1 A more detailed account of Vizcaino's stay in Japan is given by Nachod (op. cit., pp. 343 et sequ.). 

 See also Zelia Nuttall, The Earliest Historicäl Relations between Mexico and Japan (Univ. of California Publ., 

 Amer. Archaeology and Ethnography, Vol. 4, No. 1, Berkeley 1906). 



2 Col. de doc. ined. VIII, p. 178. — Compare the account of these intrigues in Relation des isles 

 Philippines faite par 1'Amirante D. Hieronimo de BaSuelos y Caerillo, p. 5 (Thevenot, Rel. de divers voyages 

 curieux, P. II, Paris 1666; also printed in Bl. & Rob. XXIX, pp. 68 — 85). 



