10G DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



most of them passed several degrees further towards the north. From this one can 

 perceive the impossibility that they could have sighted any of t hese islands: the northern- 

 most of the chain of small uninhabited islands and rocks that stretch from Hawaii in a 

 north-westerly direction, Ocean Island, is situated in 28° 25', and the northernmost of 

 the inhabited islands, Kauai, is not further north than 22° 15'. 



On the whole, it may be said that the galleons crossed the ocean between 30° and 

 39° N. lat. A French pilot named Fraslin, who died at Manila in 1766, is said to have 

 learnt by experience that, in order to avoid the north-easterly storms, they ought not go 

 so far towards the north as had been usual before his time, that is to say up to 37° and 

 upwards, but that the voyages would be considerably shorter and safer if the course were 

 laid in a more southerly latitude, preferably not higher than 33°. ' Possibly it was this 

 remark which ga ve rise to the direction which the editor of Anson's Voyage 2 says that 

 he had seen in the instructions for the voyages of the galleons: according to this they were, 

 if possible, to keep to the thirtieth degree and not go further north of this than was ab- 

 solutely necessary to take advantage of the westerly winds. Anson's companion, however, 

 strongly disapproves of this sailing direction. If, he says, they steered instead up to 40° 

 or 45° N. they would there find westerly winds more constant and stronger, and as a 

 result of this they could make considerably shorter voyages. But it was reserved to the 

 seamen of other nations to gain confirmation of the correctness of this latter assertion. 



The Spanish seamen of early times, especially those who navigated the Pacific 

 Ocean, were often accused by their contemporaries of gross ignorance of their profession. 3 

 To judge by the log-books which are here summarized, however, this accusation seems 

 not a little unfair. The latitude-observations made are, when they can be checked, 

 astonishing exact. Even the longitudes for the first part of the voyage, until they had 

 reached the meridian of the Mariannes, do not exhibit very considerable errors. As an 

 example it may be cited that, for Volcan Grande, whose right position is 19° 45' N. lat. 

 and 145° 29' E. long. Gr., the average of the observations during seven different voyages 

 gives 20° 7' N. and 144° 20' E. That during the rest of the voyage for several months 

 across the open sea the dead reckoning should give extrem ely erroneous longitudes is not 

 to be wondered at; but in these calculations the pilots of the galleons were not inferior 

 to the navigatörs of other nations at a time when all astronomical methods of determining 

 the longitude at sea were unknown. The officers of the galleons were not ignorant of 

 the untrustworthiness of the dead reckoning; and it is easy to understand the importance 

 they attached to the only means they possessed of correcting it, that is the senas: the 

 day when these were descried was in fact celebrated with a Te Deum and other ceremonies. 



The senas gave the signal for the alteration of the course from E. to SE. At the time 

 with which we are here dealing they seldom made the nearest land on the American coast, 

 but usually steered in such a way as to sight the lof ty island of Guadalwpe (29° 7'N. lat.), 



1 Le Gentil, Voyage dans les mcrs de VInde, Paris 1781, T. I, p. 673; II, p. 226. 



2 Ansoris Voyage, Lond. 1749, p. 242. 



3 As early as the heginning of the seventeenth century there are heard complaints of the ignorance 

 of the pilots, and towards the close of the same century Dampier says: "It is stränge to say how grossly 

 ignorant the Spaniards in the West Tndies. but especially in the South Seas, are of sea-affairs." 



