Spaniards as early as the sixteenth
century; but they were rediscovered in 1778 by Captain Cook, who was
afterwards killed in a fight with the natives in Hawaii.[1]

[1] W. Ellis, _Polynesian Researches_, iv. 4 _sqq._; J. J.
Jarves, _History of the Hawaiian or Sandwich Islands_ (London,
1843), pp. 1 _sqq._; J. Remy, _Histoire de l'Archipel Havaiien_
(Paris and Leipzig, 1862), pp. vii _sqq._; C. E. Meinicke, _Die
Inseln des Stillen Oceans_, ii. 271 _sqq._; _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_, Ninth Edition, xi. 528 _sqq._; A. Marcuse, _Die
Hawaiischen Inseln_ (Berlin, 1894), pp. 1 _sqq._; F. H. H.
Guillemard, _Australasia_, ii. 533 _sqq._

Viewed from the sea the islands are apt to present an appearance of
barrenness and desolation. The mountains descend into the sea in
precipices often hundreds of feet high: their summits are capped with
snow or lost in mist and clouds; and their sides, green and studded with
clumps of trees in some places, but black, scorched and bare in others,
are rent into ravines, down which in the rainy seasons cataracts rush
roaring to the sea. With the changes of sunshine and shadow the
landscape as a whole strikes the beholder now as in the highest degree
horrid, dismal, and dreary, now as wildly beautiful and romantic with a
sort of stern and sombre magnificence.[2] Inland, however, in many
places the summits of the ridges crowned with forests of perpetual
verdure, the slopes covered with flowering shrubs or lofty trees, the
rocks mantled in creepers, the waterfalls dropping from stupendous
cliffs, and the distant prospects of snowy peaks, bold romantic
headlands, and blue seas, all arched by a summer sky of the deepest
azure, combine to make up pictures of fairy-like and enchanting
loveliness.[3]

[2] J. Cook, _Voyages_, vii. 94; W. Ellis, _Polynesian
Researches_, iv. 34, 379; C. S. Stewart, _Residence in the
Sandwich Islands_, Fifth Edition (Boston, 1839), pp. 69 _sqq._,
140; D. Tyerman and G. Bennet, _Journal of Voyages and Travels_,
i. 366, 391; Ch. Wilkes, _United States Exploring Expedition_,
New Edition (New York, 1851), iii. 373.

[3] W. Ellis, _op. cit._ iv. 13 _sq._; C. S. Stewart, _op. cit._
pp. 213 _sqq._, 229 _sqq._; Tyerman and Bennet, _op. cit._ i.
426 _sqq._; J. Remy, _op. cit._ pp. xiv _sq._; Ch. Wilkes, _op.
cit._ iii. 390 _sq._; F. D. Bennett, _Narrative of a Whaling
Voyage round the Globe_ (London, 1840