508 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



Curagoa, is a most interesting account of this island and 

 the condition of its population in 1865. 



6. The Union and EUice Islands. 



The little Tokelau or Union group lies about 350 

 miles N.E. of the easternmost of the Navigators' group, 

 and consists of three small islands, inhabited by a 

 Christianised people closely resembling the Samoans, and 

 speaking an allied dialect. The population is about 

 500, and the islands produce little but copra. 



The Ellice group, lately annexed by Great Britain, 

 is about 700 miles iST.W. of Savaii, and consists of a 

 number of low coral islands and atolls, arranged in nine 

 clusters, extending over a distance of 360 miles in 

 a N.W. by N^. and S.E. by S. direction, which axis is 

 common to most of the groups of this part of the Pacific. 

 The population numbers about 2500, and almost all 

 are Christians, mission posts having been established on 

 many islands. All can read, and most write. The in- 

 habitants of iSTui speak the language of the Gilbert 

 Islanders, and have a tradition that they came from that 

 group. All the others speak a dialect of the Samoan 

 language, and say they came from Samoa thirty genera- 

 tions back. They have a very ancient spear or staff, 

 which they claim to have brought from Samoa, nam- 

 ing the particular valley they came from. This valley 

 was visited by a missionary, to whom they lent this spear, 

 and he found there a tradition of a large party having 

 gone to sea and never returning, and, moreover, that the 

 wood of which the spear was made was of a kind that grew 

 there. We have here proof that traditions of migrations 

 among the Polynesians may be trusted, even when so 

 remote as thirty generations, or 600 years. In 1863 



