The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1909-11-28
BY D. L. MacKaye.


In December. 1866. c. de Tariguy,
minister If foreign affairs Of the King
dom Of Hawaii. wrote letter to Don
Francisco Moscoso Y Lara, Governor Of
the Mariana Islands. now more gener-
allv known as the Ladrones In that
letter he acknowledged the receipt Of
extracts from the archives Of Spain
which had been forwarded here via the
Spanish possessions IN the South Seas
And in those extracts are data that APP
pear to take away from Captain Cook
the honor Of the discovery Of the Ha-
waiian Islands, although it still leaves
him as he who named them. These ex-
tracts, brown and musty, written on
the paper Of the colonial office of the
Philippines, are at present in the ar
chives building under the care of Keep
er Lydeeker They were probably
copied in Manila from the original
copy sent from Madrid, which were
most likely the worst for wear after
their voyage half way around the world
with the transportation facilities of
! those days.
If the surmises expressed in these
extracts are correct, Juan Gaetano is
the discoverer of the Hawaiian Is
lands. They say: "By all the docu-
ments that have been examined it is
demonstrated that that discovery dates
from the year 1856, or 223 years before
Captain Cook surveyed those islands,
and that the discoverer was Juan Gae-
tano. or Gayfan, who gave names to
the principal islands of the group. 1t
is true that no document has been
found in which Gaytan himself certi-
fies to this fact, but there exists data
which collectively form a series of
proofs sufficient for believing it to
be so.
tThe principal one is an old man
uscript chart, registered in these ar
chives (of SPAIN as anonymous, and
in which the Sandwich Islands are laid
down under that name, but which also
contains a note declaring the name of
the discoverer and the date of the dis.
covery, and that he called them 'Islas
de Mesa liable Islands). There are,
besides, other islands situated in the
same latitude but ten degrees further
east, and respectively named La Mesa
(The Table,, La Desgraciado' (The
Unfortunately, 'Olloa' and Los Mon
ges' (The Monks). This chart appears
to be a copy of that called the Chart
of the Spanish Gallons, existing long
before the time of Cook, and which is
referred to by all national Spanish
and foreign authors.
1t may be noticed that the extracts
contain no reference to any landing
made by Gaetano, but names an island
supposed to be discovered by him,
"Olloa. AS this sounds very much
like 'Faloha,' the first and most-used
word that any explorer would be like
ly to hear, it might be considered cir
cumstantial evidence that he did dis
embark at one of them. 1t must be
remembered, however, that as this
word is written in Spanish il is pro-
nounced al-lyo-ah, which does not sound
as much like aloha as it could doe writ
ten. The extracts go on to name many
of the old maps in which the Sand
NltH IeIduuS sttn W Db lCCOtuCh
Amongst these is one published by Will |
liam Blaen in Amsterdam in 1868. ''In
the first map say the extracts,
"entitled America Nova Fabula, the
neighboring islands, La ,Desgraeia- !
do, and those of Los Monges' are
placed towards the 21st degree of north |
latitude and 120 degrees west of the
meridian passing through the Island of |
Teneriffe. -
Another is "the Geographical Atlas
of D AWHILE published in 170l.' The |
islands Desgraciado. Mesa "Ol- |
loa - and clos Monges' are found !
% in twenty degrees north latitude and !
about seventeen degrees further east.
Alexander Lindlae's 'Direc
tory for the Navigation of the Pacific |
Ocean, Edition of 1857, conceives
strong impressions that the discoverer
must have been one of the Spanish |
Of the XVI. century, be-
cause of the iron articles found by
Cook in those islands, one of them
being a fragment of wide sword.
Then the extracts insinuate that the
English borrowed from the old maps of
the Spaniards in charting the voy-
ages of Captain Cook to better make
good their claims to the Islands. "Lieu
tenant Roberts. who constructed the
chart of the third voyage of the Eng
lish navigator round the world