OCEANIC MIGRATIONS. 



191 



This list could be greatly extended, but the foregoing will be 

 sufficient to show that the Vitian and Tarawan have derived many 

 of their words from a common source, and that this source is not the 

 Polynesian. We have no means of determining if these words are 

 found in the language of Banabe, but it certainly is not improbable. 

 We have seen, in the description given of the natives of that island, 

 that they are of two classes, differing so much in color and features 

 as to make a difference of origin highly probable. The one, which 

 includes all the chiefs and free natives, is evidently of the yellow 

 Micronesian race ; the other is ascribed, both by Admiral Lu'tke and 

 O'Connell, to the Papuan or Melanesian. At present they speak one 

 language, which is, perhaps, formed by a fusion of their original 

 idioms. In this case, a part of the Banabean tongue would have a 

 cognate origin with the greater part of the Vitian. The words of 

 Melanesian origin, in the former tongue, would be brought by the 



