THE POLYNESIANS AND THEIR PLANT-NAMES. 139 



arrived at their present home. The Melanesians, as I take it, 

 took the same road, and, on finding AnstraHa ah-eady peopled, 

 they occupied New Guinea, and their course became diverted 

 into the archipelagoes of the Western Pacific. The 

 Polynesians, in their turn obstructed by their Melanesian 

 predecessors in the Indian Archipelago, took the path of least 

 resistance, and trusting their future to the waves they 

 ultimately reached the distant isles of the Pacific by way of 

 the Philippine Islands and through the Caroline, Marshall, and 

 Gilbert Groups. Last of all came the Micronesians, the 

 scouts of the great host of Mongolian peoples that has since 

 appropriated Eastern Asia, and intruded itself into the 

 Archipelago. These pioneers of a new race made but a 

 short sojourn in the Archipelago. Before them lay a region 

 already occupied by their predecessors, and, retreat being 

 impossible, they followed the footsteps of the Polynesians and 

 took up their abode in Micronesia. 



Now, I assume that no retrograde movement was possible 

 in any of these migrations. The same vis d tergo acting 

 through the ages urged them on, and we appear to have in 

 the distribution of these peoples successive deposits of the 

 difi'erent varieties of the human race resting unconformably 

 on the Negrito stratum and illustrating seemingly man's 

 racial development in this portion of the globe. Yet it is 

 but reasonable to suppose that we have here but indications 

 of a general ethnic movement from the north which Ave 

 might expect to find indicated in the distribution of the 

 varieties of man in other parts of Asia. Looking at the 

 Indian Peninsula and Ceylon we seem to find in the 

 arrangement of the Kolarians, the Dra vidians, and the 

 Aryans, etc., a repetition of the phenomenon of racial 

 migration which appears to be clearly recorded in the ethnic 

 history of Further India and Australasia. With the 

 appearance of the Ura vidians, the aborigines found a refuge 

 in the hills. The Dravidians were in their turn pushed by 

 the incoming Aryans to the southern part of the Peninsula, 

 and on the flanks of the Himalayas, in the rear of the Aryan, 

 the Mongolian appeared. 



Coming to the bearing of these views on the subject 

 proper of this discussion, I assume that the Melanesians of 

 the Indian Archipelago were the original possessors of that 

 language which has given birth to the Malay o-Polynesian 

 family of speech. They have carried to the distant islands 

 of the Fijis those linguistic characteristics which we find 



