48 Origin of the Hawaiian Nation. 



elbow room, having ranged, for instance, in our own case, as already 

 mentioned, between NE. and ESE., the Polynesian groups, occu- 

 pying about fifty degrees of latitude, might all be intersected, with- 

 out any formidable interventions of a foul wind, by one and the same 

 track, starting from the westward ; and, even independently of this 

 constant oscillation of the ordinary current, of the air, the same re- 

 sult could be still more easily and more directly attained with the 

 aid of the opposite monsoons, which blow, with greater or less regu- 

 larity, during two or three successive months of the year. Moreover, 

 on such a point, one fact is more conclusive than a score of argu- 

 ments ; and, unfortunately for the partisans of the east wind, all the 

 facts are stubborn supporters of the other side of the question. The 

 inhabitants of each group, in whatever direction their ancestors 

 reached it, think nothing of sailing from its westerly to its easterly 

 islands ; and Captain Beechy fell in with several men and women, 

 who had drifted six hundred miles with a large canoe in the very 

 teeth of the general direction of the prevailing trades. But, even if 

 the alleged difficulty amounted to an actual impossibility, the claims 

 of Asia to be the cradle of the Polynesians, though they might bo 

 weakened, would yet not be disproved. The westerly gales, which 

 generally blow on either side of the region of the trades, might carry 

 vessels far enough to the eastward, to make the tropical breeze a fair 

 wind to the westward, more particularly if they had started from the 

 more northerly coasts of Asia ; and, in fact, one Japanese junk, in 

 December 1832, was driven to Woahoo, with four men alive out of 

 her crew of nine ; while, aoain, in 1839, another was found driftinor 

 about half way on the same involuntary voyage, with several indi- 

 viduals on board, the same whom we afterwards saw at Ochotsk, 

 which they had reacljed immediately from Kamschatka, on their 

 homeward route from the Sandwich Islands. 



Farther, if the trade-winds had really rendered a voyage from 

 west to east impracticable, Polynesia would, in all probability, never 

 have been peopled. There is not the least evidence for believing, — 

 there is not the slightest reason for supposing, — that the Aborigines 

 of America ever possessed a canoe or any other vessel stout enough 

 to survive the dangers of the intervening ocean, during a voyage 

 which could not, under the most favourable circumstances, occupy 

 less than three or four weeks. All the obstacles of the trade-wind 

 notwithstanding, I should more readily conclude, that the Marquesas 

 colonized Southern America, than that Southern America colonized 

 the Marquesas, — so far, at least, as the mere question of navigation 

 might be concerned. 



From what country, then, of Asia, did the Polynesians spring \ 

 Almost, to a moral certainty, from some point, or rather points, be- 

 tween the southern extremity of Malacca, and the northern limits of 

 Japan, — an answer which appears to be corroborated by that most 

 conclusive of all features of resemblance, the similarity of language. 



