128 Transactions. 



they managed to pick up the land. " When making voyages to 

 a high island or a large one," he says, " the difficulty of a land- 

 fall is not great. But it is different in the case of the atolls, of 

 which there are so many in the central Pacific. The system 

 which was adopted in such cases was this : The people generally 

 voyaged in fleets, for mutual help and company, and when they 

 expected to make the land . . . the fleet spread out in the 

 form of a crescent, the chief's canoe in the centre, to distances 

 of about five miles apart on each side, so as to extend their 

 view ; whichever crew saw the land first signalled their neigh- 

 bours, who passed the signal on, till the whole fleet was enabled 

 to steer for the expected land. A fleet of ten canoes would 

 thus have a view of over fifty miles on their front." 



Taking these facts into consideration, one can readily under- 

 stand how these bold and resourceful navigators managed to 

 reach their destination once the direction of their objective 

 and the distance to be travelled were approximately known ; 

 but it is not always easy to conceive how the objective came to 

 be determined on. What, for instance, would suggest the idea 

 that there might be land in a particular direction some thousands 

 of miles off, such as that of New Zealand or Honolulu, which 

 might repay a voyage of exploration ? Mr. Percy Smith says 

 (" Hawaiki," p. 131) that " in passing onward by way of New 

 Guinea, the Solomons, and New Hebrides to the Fiji Group, the 

 idea must have forced itself into the minds of the people that 

 the whole eastern world was covered with islands, and that they 

 had only to move onward into the unknown to find more lands 

 on which to settle." This was very likely the case in a large 

 number of instances, and it is probable that many of the islands 

 and scattered groups within a certain limit were reached in this 

 way. One can readily understand that in a strong weatherly 

 vessel like their large double or outrigger sailing canoes, which 

 could beat to windward with any topsail schooner, and in which, 

 therefore, they would have no difficulty in making their way back 

 in any direction, they might put out on a voyage of discovery 

 which in the tropical and subtropical belt would be almost sure 

 to be attended with success ; but that any party should have 

 been sufficiently hardy and persevering as to systematically 

 sweep the empty vastnesses of the northern and southern 

 Pacific on the off-chance of finding land for settlement is 

 scarcely within the bounds of credibility. 



The fact is quite authenticated that long before the great 

 migration to New Zealand — i.e., the advent of the " Arawa," 

 the " Tainui," the " Aotea," the " Mataatua," and other canoes 

 — which is generally placed in the fourteenth century — many 

 vessels found their way backwards and forwards between this 



