474 AUSTRALASIA. 



currents. In these waters hurricanes are rare, although they blow at times with 

 extreme violence, especially in the Low Archipelago and in Samoa. In 1878 a 

 cyclone passing over Tuamotu swept away Anaa, the capital. Another tremendous 

 typhoon visited Samoa in March, 1889, and almost completely wrecked the 

 American and German fleets riding at anchor in the harbour of Apia. The 

 British cruiser Calliope alone escaped uninjured by making for the open sea in 

 the teeth of such a gale as had not been known in the archipelago for nearly thirty 

 years. 



The hilly islands, such as Nuka-hiva, Tahiti, Raratonga, Upolu, and Savaii, 

 lying along the track of the trade-winds, receive an abundant rainfall at least on 

 their windward slopes. But the low insular groups, which are unable to arrest 

 the moist atmospheric currents, are much drier, and at times uever receive a single 

 downpour for years together. The islands lying wdthin this almost rainless zone 

 were, till lately, covered with thick deposits of guano, and some are even still 

 worked with profit. Such are Baker, the neighbouring Howlands, and farther 

 east Jarvis and Maiden. 



In its flora and fauna Equatorial Polynesia is essentially Melanesiau. Although 

 American forms occur, nearly all its plants and animals have come from the west, 

 which would seem to imply that these archipelagoes are not surviving fragments 

 of a submerged continent. Tahiti, Samoa, and other lands enjoying a copious 

 rainfall are clothed with an exuberant tropical vegetation, but distinct animal and 

 vegetable species are everywhere few in number. In the Low Archipelago Gray 

 failed to discover more than 28 or 30 indigenous plants, and before the arrival of 

 the whites a species of rat, said to have been half domesticated in Mangareva, was 

 the only mammal found in equatorial Polynesia. Here also a centipede 6 inches 

 long is the only venomous animal. 



Inhabitants of Polynesia. 



From the ethnical standpoint Polynesia forms a distinct domain in the oceanic 

 world, although its inhabitants do not appear to be altogether free from mixture 

 with foreign elements. The vestiges of older civilisations differing from the 

 present even prove that human migrations and revolutions have taken place in this 

 region on a scale large enough to cause the displacement of whole races. The 

 curious monuments of Easter Island, although far inferior in artistic work to the 

 wood carvings of Birara and New Zealand, may perhaps be the witnesses of a 

 former culture, no traditions of which have survived amongst the present aborigines. 

 These monuments may possibly be the work of a Papuan people, for skulls found 

 in the graves differ in no essential feature from those of New Guinea. The 

 " statues " are enormous basalt rocks, one no less than 23 feet long, representing 

 the head and bust of persons with uniformly low forehead, prominent superciliary 

 arches, long nose, wide nostrils, large mouth, thin lips, and stern expression. 

 According to Clements Markham they resemble the Aymara (Bolivian and Peru- 

 vian) more than the present Polynesian type. Most of them are erected on basalt 

 ledges in the interior of a crater, and some have been left unfinished or not com- 



