36 Transactions. — Miscellaneous. 



when the easterly migration took place, they could scarcely 

 fail to have been transported to some of the Polynesian groups ; 

 and this conclusion is strengthened by the fact that the people 

 of the Philippines possessed domestic goats when Magellan 

 discovered the group, though these animals, so easy to trans- 

 port, were not found further eastward."'' 



To the progress of the inland pastoral peoples, who con- 

 stantly swept down on southern Asia, the sea naturally pre- 

 sented an insurmountable obstacle. The Javanas, who overran 

 the Malay Archipelago from India at the commencement of the 

 Christian era, were the descendants of the Greek conquerors of 

 Hindostan, and consequently a people better adapted for mari- 

 time enterprise than the Indo-Aryans, with whom they had 

 become intermingled.! 



Unlike the Old World, in the New the domestication of 

 animals, if we except the dog, as well as the cultivation of 

 vegetables, commenced within the tropics. This cannot be 

 attributed to the physical features or fauna of the region, for 

 in temperate North America all the conditions necessary to 

 beget and develope the pastoral industry — wide-stretching 

 grassy plains and ruminants well adapted for domestication- 

 occur. 



As the necessity for an artificial regulation of the food- 

 supply is obviously greater in high latitudes, where long, severe 

 winters have to be encountered, than near the equator, where 

 a warm, monotonous climate prevails, the question naturally 

 presents itself, Why, of all the aboriginal races, did those 

 dwelling within the tropics alone try to make themselves in- 

 dependent of the wild or spontaneous productions of the 

 country ? 



According to an ancient Mexican tradition, the civilization 

 of that country was introduced by a bearded foreigner from 

 the West. We have already seen that between eastern 

 Polynesia and the New World a communication formerly 

 existed. Although these two items of evidence corroborate 

 each other in a remarkable manner, it would be rash to found 

 a theory on them. Still, they show unmistakably the possi- 

 bility of the ancient American civilization having been derived 

 from Asia by way of Polynesia, or, in other words, the possi- 

 bility of civilization, taken as a whole, being monogenetic, 

 instead of polygenetic, as hitherto supposed. Here the great 

 importance of Polynesian or Maori history becomes at once 

 obvious ; but this subject will be better considered in the 

 sequel. 



The only domestic animals the New-Zealanders possessed 



* " Life of Ferdinand Magellan." P. H. H. Guillemard. 

 t " Orissa." W. Hunter. 



