114 FOLLOW THE WHALE 



the Pacific which produced similar results. To these we must now 

 turn for a moment. 



The history of the vast Pacific Ocean is less known than that 

 of any other part of the world. What is more, there are more con- 

 tradictory theories about it than about any area, yet each theory is 

 supported by a group of very real experts who have devoted their 

 Hves to the study of its history, and each theory appears to be 

 backed up by great volumes of physical evidence. The controversy 

 does not concern us, but certain of the theories do, and we must 

 have some clear idea of the geography of the area before we can 

 understand anything about its peoples or its history. 



Of primary importance in this respect is to appreciate the fact 

 that the Pacific is most clearly divided into two major portions — 

 a northern, which extends from 30° N. to the Arctic Ocean at the 

 Bering Strait, and thus includes the north temperate and boreal lati- 

 tudes; and a southern, which reaches south from 30° N. to the 

 Antarctic, and almost all of which is warm, containing as it does 

 all the tropic latitudes of both hemispheres and the south tem- 

 perate belt. The dividing line is the vast, blank, islandless region 

 that extends right across the North Pacific from Samoa to Cali- 

 fornia. We will dispose of the southern portion first and in very 

 short order because, despite its very real fascination, it unfortu- 

 nately cannot at present contribute anything really concrete to our 

 story during this period of history. 



There are those — notably Thor Heyerdahl of Kon-tiki fame — 

 who maintain that there was emigration from South America to the 

 archipelagoes of the South Pacific. There are others who deny this, 

 and contend that all the people came in successive waves from south- 

 east Asia via Indonesia, New Guinea, thence along the string of 

 great islands — the Solomons, New Hebrides, Fiji, Tonga, Samoa, 

 Tahiti — to the Marquesas, and finally to Hawaii. The first wave, 

 they state, were the Melanesians, of whom the only remnants are 

 the little Negritos, and the Papuans of New Guinea, both of Proto- 

 Negroid type. Next came a race related to the Dravidians of south- 

 ern India, who, as we have already ^seen, were great seamen and 

 possibly the first true open-ocean sailors. They too have left fairly 

 pure remnants, such as the Mentawi Islanders off the coast of Su- 

 matra. These were the great voyagers who, when they passed on- 



