RELIGION, PAST AND PRESENT. 63 



mutineers of the Bounty settled, and on Fannings Island, near 

 Christmas Island, midway between the Society and the Sand- 

 wich Islands, although now desolate, relics of former inhabitants 

 have been found. Pavements of floors, foundations of houses, 

 and stone entrances have been discovered ; and stone adzes, or 

 hatchets, have been found at some distance from the surface, 

 exactly resembling those in use among the people of the North 

 and South Pacific at the time of their discovery. These facts 

 prove that the nations now inhabiting these and other islands 

 have been in former times more widely extended than they are 

 at present.' 



There are, besides, many well-authenticated accounts of long 

 voyages performed in native vessels by the inhabitants of both 

 the North and South Pacific. In 1696 two canoes were driven 

 from Ancarso to one of the Philippine Islands, a distance of 

 eight hundred miles. Their occupants said they had run before 

 the wind for seventy days, sailing from east to west. Thirty- 

 five had embarked, but five died from the effects of privation 

 and fatigue during the voyage, and one shortly after their 

 arrival. In 1723 two canoes drifted from a remote distance to 

 one of the Marian Islands. Captain Cook found in the island 

 of Wateo Atiu inhabitants of Tahiti who had been driven by 

 contrary winds in a canoe from some islands in the eastward 

 unknown to the natives. In 1820 a canoe arrived at the island 

 of Maurua from one of the Austral Group, which must have 

 sailed some eight hundred miles. While recently, Mr. George 

 Prescott, brother of the author of the ' Conquest of Mexico,' 

 sailed from Tahiti to Samoa in a whale-boat, and, by his route, 

 must have sailed some fifteen hundred miles ; and a certain 

 Harry Williams, accompanied by some natives, went from 

 Maldon Island to his own island of Mannihiki, a distance of 

 five hundred miles, in a flat-bottomed punt. 



