294: UEPOKT— 1B91. 



certainly did Cook in the discovery of the east coast of Aus- 

 traha, where — I am informed by my friend Dr. Carroll, of 

 Sydney — traces of the Polynesian language are to be found, 

 and where their descendants yet have a tradition of the arrival 

 of canoes from the eastward, the occupants of which settled 

 down there. The fact of the existence of a colony of Poly- 

 nesians on the east side of Yorke Peninsula is also mentioned 

 by Quatrefages in his " I^es Hommes Fossiles et les Hommes 

 Sauvages." 



Their voyages must liave extended occasionally to the west- 

 ward of the Fiji group, and probably to New Caledonia and the 

 New Hebrides, where, indeed, a colony of them has been 

 found." With the exception of New Zealand, tlie green jade is 

 believed only to be found in these groups, and yet the early 

 European voyagers saw it in the possession of the Polynesians 

 in many of the islands. Allowing that some of it came from 

 New Zealand during the later periods, it would also be obtained 

 from the other islands named. It is known that one of the 

 Loyalty Islands is at present inhabited by Polynesians wdio 

 arrived there five or six generations ago in one of their own 

 canoes, and that there are also colonies of them in some of the 

 other Melanesian islands to the north. It is even probable 

 that such an isolated little spot as Norfolk Island was first 

 discovered by these old sea-kings in their westerly voyages, for 

 a stone hatchet has been dug up there of the usual Polynesiair 

 pattern — a fact whicli has been verified by Mr. John White, 

 the author of "The Ancient History of the Maori," who saw 

 tl'.e implement at Norfolk Island many years ago. 



When we come to consider that the Polynesians had a 

 knowledge of the geography of the Pacific extending from the 

 Chatham Islands in the south-west to the Sandwich Islands in 

 the north, from the Solomon Islands in the north-west to 

 Easter Island in the south-east — distances respectively of 

 4,400 and 6,000 miles — we cannot but wonder that a people 

 apparently in so early a stage of advancement, and without 

 the aid of other instruments to guide them than their own 

 acute senses, should have been able to make such lengthened 

 voyages, or that they could find the same islands twice after 

 voyages extending over days, and sometimes weeks. Like 

 all savage peoples, their perceptions of the signs of nature, 

 whether on the land, the sea, or in the air, were far keener 

 than those of civilised beings. The neighbourhood of land 

 would become to them a certainty long before our duller senses 

 would ever have suspected its existence. The flight of birds, 

 the drift of wood, the fragrance of the land, were all signs full 



* " Samoa a Hundred Years ago," by the Rev. G. Turner, LL.D. 8vo. 

 .onaon,1884. Page 331. 



