CHAP. VI.] ANTIQUARIAN QUESTIONS. 97 



we only became acquainted after it had exchanged 

 its primitive seat for the Indian and oceanic islands, 

 and had sunk into comparative barbarism ? Was 

 it Java, or the continent of Asia itself, that fertile 

 birth-place of nations? Or must we look to the 

 east, to which direction, indeed, their traditions 

 point ? and is America the true seat of a once 

 mighty civilization, which has been broken up 

 by some cause or other, and the people scattered 

 abroad ? No clue remains to solve this problem, 

 as we now only see many nations which stand in 

 co-ordination, but not in subordination, to each 

 other, and of which, although they are in very dif- 

 ferent degrees of civilization, none can claim abso- 

 lute antiquity. On all these points a field is open 

 for a combination of labour, and an arduous inves- 

 tigation of language, carried from island to island. 

 Nations rapidly undergo an entire change ; and 

 where the art of writing does not exist, the history 

 of their ancestors and origin soon falls into oblivion, 

 and language, which in nations separated from each 

 other is most stationary, must be almost our only 

 guide. Even during the short period of sixty years 

 that Europeans have been acquainted with the New 

 Zealanders, their knowledge of navigation has dimi- 

 nished, and with it that bold adventurous spirit 

 which made them brave the dangers of long coast- 

 ing voyages. For instance, Captain Cook found 

 them possessed of double canoes, which are now 

 nowhere met with. 



VOL. II. H 



