406 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



natives of these places speak one tongue. There are too many 

 points of argument in the question to meet here, but I doubt if 

 Polynesian scholars will accept any such theory. There is 

 great persistence and no great difference in most vital Poly- 

 nesian words: rakau, "a tree," for instance, is lakau, raau, 

 laau in almost all the islands. But if we are to study Poly- 

 nesian through Melanesian ; if we are to find the word ra ka u 

 (honestly) in hayu, ai, ei, kayu, diwal, pasil, ie, etc., as Mr. 

 Codrington says, we shall require " more light " than a single 

 book can afford us. There can be little reason for studying 

 Maori through such corrupt and degraded channels as the 

 Melanesian speech; it would be about as reasonable as to 

 study the English language through the " slave- blobber " of 

 the American Negro. It seems to me that Mr. Codrington's 

 efforts are used to make those among whom he labours be 

 considered equal to any of the other islanders. He says 

 (p. 12) : " The Melanesian people have the misfortune to 

 be black, to be much darker, at least, than either Malays 

 or Polynesians;" (at p. 13) "there is no doubt a certain re- 

 luctance on the brown side to acknowledge the kindred of the 

 black. The Melanesians are the poor relations, at the best, of 

 their more civilized and stronger neighbours;" (at p. 35) "to 

 the Polynesian, who is shocked at being claimed as a relation 

 by a much blacker man than himself, it is answered that he 

 speaks a language very like the Melanesian, but not so com- 

 plete and full." The gist of these remarks seems to be, " My 

 black-fellow is as good as (if not better than) your brown -fellow." 

 I can only say that there is no more reluctance among the 

 Polynesians to acknowledge kinship with the Melanesians than 

 there is among Europeans to acknowledge kinship with the 

 light races of the South Seas. By the accounts of the early 

 explorers, they again and again mistook Polynesians for 

 Europeans. Ethnologically, I should think that the dis- 

 tance between the straight-haired, light-brown, Polynesian and 

 the blue-black, woolly-haired Melanesian was very great, in 

 type, although there may be many intermediate links in the 

 islands, made by persistent "crossings" of the strains of 

 blood. 



The Malagasy speech-family is a very difficult subject to 

 treat of: as to many words being kindred (if the sound ami sense 

 resemblance is acknowledged as proof of unity) with the Malay, the 

 fact is indisputable, although I believe many of the coincidences 

 are fallacious. But the Polynesian words to be found are few 

 indeed : the words used in Madagascar have been but too often 

 compared with the corrupt and abraded forms of Eastern Poly- 

 nesia, wherein, by the dropping of important letters, all original 

 form of the word has been lost, and become worthless for pur- 

 poses of comparison. And the grammar! He must be a 



