THE MAORIS PLACE IN HISTORY. 281 
The extremely barbarous condition of the Australian and 
Tasmanian aborigines and the heterogeneous societies of 
New Guinea and Melanesia show that in parts of the region 
it has been imposed on peoples very much lower in the social 
scale. 
On the African continent, though the natives have long 
understood how to obtain and manufacture iron, a few 
primitive Oceanian arts are still in vogue, and traces of the 
ancient Oceanian or Maori language have been detected by 
philologists amongst certain negro tribes. In his well-known 
work The Races of Man Dy. Pickering thus closes a chapter 
on “Migrations by Sea” :—“ Arabia being situated entirely 
within a desert region, the timber used by the inhabitants is 
all imported from abroad, either from the Malabar Coast or 
from Zanzibar. And leaving the absence of natural inclina- 
tion for maritime pursuits, it would seem a fair inference that 
navigation did not take its rise in a country devoid of the 
materials of construction. 
“ South of the Arab colonies of East Africa, we have Malay 
influence of unknown antiquity at the Comoro Islands and 
Madagascar. Here too the outrigger makes its appearance, 
an article not used by the Arabs, but which is general in the 
Pacific and occurs at Sooloo, and, if I am rightly informed, at 
Ceylon. The Maldive Islanders make regular voyages only 
to the eastward; but the fact of a Maldive canoe with 
several persons on board having recently drifted to the 
vicinity of the African coast shows at least the practicability 
of intercommunication. We have thus designated, between 
Eastern Africa and the coast of America, no less than five 
separate theatres of maritime intercourse. Each of these has 
different attendant circumstances, is navigated by a different 
people and in vessels of a different construction; each if 
thoroughly examined would furnish ample materials for a 
separate volume; and this state of things has existed for 
ages notwithstanding the silence of history.” 
The distribution of the cultivated kumara (Convolvulus 
batatas) and the curious sumpitan or gravitana being found 
amongst the natives of the Malay Archipelago, Madagascar, 
and the Amazon valley are positive evidences of the ancient 
Oceanic navigators having extended their voyages to the 
eastern shores of the Pacific, as well as to the western limits 
of the Indian Ocean. 
The civilization of Central America has been a fruitful 
source of speculation ever since Europeans discovered the 
