18 THE POLYNESIAN WANDERINGS. 



came hither from the east, from Micronesian and from Polynesian groups ; 

 a distinctly smaller portion went out from Melanesia, a movement which 

 did not assume larger proportions until it came to the southern islands of 

 the series on account of the more peaceful relations with the southern 

 Solomons, with the Deni Group (Santa Cruz), and other neighbors. 



It is easy to point out the easy way upon the charts and to prove 

 it easy. To us, in these days of veritable islands which make their 

 way across the seas under impulse of mighty enginery, it is easy 

 to feel convinced that if Polynesians ever did travel far and wide 

 over the stormy ocean in frail canoes held together with stitches, 

 they must have selected the course where the resistance was least. 

 So far a most excellent case has been made out. 



But the Polynesians were the most hardy race of daring navi- 

 gators that the world has ever known. They know which way 

 they came, they have preserved the logs of these ancient voyages 

 when yet the sea was all their own, theirs alone. They were not 

 afraid of the sea, they fought it, and they had no charts to point 

 them to an easier traverse.* 



Before we proceed to further examination, it seems proper to 

 interject a brief mention of another presentation of the theory to 

 whose support Dr. Thilenius has brought all the resources of his 

 great acumen. The presentation upon which I would animadvert 

 does not pretend to be a scientific statement. But since it has 

 found its way into print as something proved, I can not feel it time 

 wasted to impugn the bona fides of the author who presents it or 

 the source from which he derived it. This pseudo-myth, this rather 

 clever fabrication, is given to the world, at a by no means ungraceful 

 length, in the fourth chapter of Richard Deeken's " Manuia Samoa," 

 a volume of travel sketches which has been somewhat severely 

 criticised from the economic side. With no word of credit to any 

 authority, with all the positiveness of statement proper to the 

 record of approved history, he begins his chapter with the account 

 of a plague in Sumatra: "Niemand kann sagen wann es war, 

 wahrscheinlich jedoch lange bevor Christi Geburt, als auf Sumatra 

 eine vernichtende Seuche wiitete? die die junges und altes Leben 

 in Massen hinmordete." 



The story is all the more dangerous because well told. He recites 

 the ineffectual efforts to stay the disease culminating in the heroic 



*I had written these words several months before the first of such charts was put 

 into the hands of the skilled navigators of the world, the Pilot Chart of the South Pacific 

 for the months of September, October, and November, 1909, issued by the Hydro- 

 graphic Bureau of the United States Navy. In the three months for which these data 

 are tabulated, months, as I well know, of good sailing in those seas, the currents between 

 the Gilberts and Samoa do not facilitate canoe voyaging, as Dr. Thilenius is so satisfied. 

 The average set is westward and southwestward, and the rate averages between 10 and 

 50 knots a day. 



