The ukulele was introduced to Hawaii in the summer of 1879, when the Ravenscrag arrived in Honolulu carrying more than 400 Portuguese immigrants. These people came to the Islands from the island of Madeira to work in the sugarcane fields. The story goes that a man named Joao Fernandes was so happy to finally reach Honolulu-it had been an exhausting, four-month journey of some 15,000 miles-that he grabbed a friend's braguinha, jumped off the boat and began playing folk songs from his homeland right on the wharf. The crowd of Hawaiians who witnessed Fernandes' impromptu playing was impressed, and they marveled at how his fingers jumped like fleas all over the fingerboard. Thus, they called the instrument "ukulele," which translates to "jumping flea."