196 DAHLGREN, THE DISCOVERY OF THE HAWAIIAN ISLANDS. 



11 or 18,000 feet, 1 blazed like fire, from the strong reflection of the sun-beams striking them long 

 before they reached us on the waters below. As the morning advanced, plantations, villages, and 

 scattered huts were distinctly seen along the shore . . . 2 



From Mr. Manley Hopkins I take the following description: — 



On approaching the group from certain directions the first objects which meet the sight are the 

 two lofty peaks on Hawaii, each 14,000 feet in height, one of them capped with perpetual snow, which 

 contrasts with the deep blue of the tropical sky above, and with the darkness of the lava forming the 

 sides of the mountains. A rude and irregular outline of liigh lands then presents itself ; and on the 

 north side are seen, on a nearer view, the dark forests which clothe the lower region of the mountains . . . 3 



It seems to me extremely improbable that the old Spaniards ga ve the name of La 

 Mesa to a land with this appearance; and as it has been shown above that that name is 

 certainly a corruption of La Mira, 4 the evidence drawn from that point is reduced to such 

 a faint possibility that we can certainly reject it entirely in the discussion of the question 

 before us. 



1 This is an exaggeration : Mauna Kea is 13,800 feet liigh, and Mauna Loa 13,600 feet. 



2 C. S Stewart, Journal of a Iiesidence in the Sandwich Islands during the years 1823, 1824, and 

 1825. Lond. 1828, p. 87. 



3 Manley Hopkins, Hawaii. Lond. 1862, p. 12. 



4 The signification of Mira is the sight on a gun or the mark in a butt and, in a transferred sense, 

 an object seen at a distance. 



