92 EASTER ISLAND. [PART I. 



like New Zealanders than any other Polynesians, 

 the connecting link between the group of Hawaii 

 and Ahi na Maui, or New Zealand? Easter 

 Island is at the limits of the south-east trade- 

 wind, and emigrants from Hawaii might arrive 

 there without difficulty : the present inhabitants of 

 this isle, a spot almost lost in the infinity of the 

 ocean, seem to have retrograded in civilization; at 

 least the high statues, cut out of a soft volcanic 

 rock, which were seen there by Cook and La Pey- 

 rouse, were not ascribed to the then existing genera- 

 tion, but to their ancestors ; and the strange shape 

 of these sculptures reminds us more than anything 

 else of the grotesque wood-carvings of the natives of 

 New Zealand. Is it not probable that the ancestors 

 of both people, now so remote from each other, were 

 the same ? We have, unfortunately, no means of 

 comparing the dialect of Easter Island with that of 

 New Zealand ; and the outrages committed in mo- 

 dern times, by those who miscall themselves Chris- 

 tians, on the natives of that interesting spot, do not 

 leave us much hope that our acquaintance will soon 

 become more intimate. The native name of Easter 

 Island is Waihu, and the same word is found as the 

 native name of Coromandel Harbour, on the eastern 

 coast of New Zealand. 



The Sandwich Islands, it is true, are, of all the 

 Polynesian Islands, the most distant from New Zea- 

 land, being situated in 24 north lat. and 161 45' 

 west long., while the most northern point of New 



