354 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF MYTHS. 



Tahiti (Kahiki, that is to say, to the land/ar aivay), and brings 

 back wondrous tales of Haupokane, " the belly of Kane," and 

 of the um.i ora, waiola, " water of life/' or wai ora roa, " water 

 of enduring life," which removes all sickness, deformity, and 

 decrepitude from those who plunge beneath its waters.^ It is 

 perhaps to this story of the Sandwich Islands that Turner re- 

 fers, when he says that some South Sea islanders have tradi- 

 tions of a river in the spirit-world called " Water of Life," 

 which makes the old young again, and they return to earth to 

 live another life.^ 



One easy explanation of the Fountain of Youth suggests it- 

 self at the first glance. Every islander who can see the sun go 

 down old, faint, and weary into the western sea, to rise young 

 and fresh from the waters, has the Fountain of Youth before 

 him ; and this explanation of several, at least, of the stories is 

 strengthened by their details, as when the fountain is described 

 as flowing in the regions below, or in the belly of Kane, where 

 the boy who climbs over the sea goes to it ; or when, like the 

 dying and reviving sun, Batara Guru is poisoned, but finds the 

 reviving water and is cured ;^ or when the Moslem associates 

 the drinking from the fountain with Elijah of the chariot of 

 fire and horses of fire ; or with St. George, the favourite me- 

 diaeval bearer of the great Sun-myth. But, as these stories are 

 not brought forward for the purpose of discussing their origin, 

 but comparing with them a corresponding myth found acioss 

 the Atlantic, it may suffice here to give the particulars of the 

 story found current in the West Indies early in the sixteenth 

 century. Gomara relates that Juan Ponce de Leon, having 

 his government taken from him, and thus finding himself rich 

 and without charge, fitted out two caravels, and went to seek 

 for the island of Boyuca, where the Indians said there was the 

 fountain that turned old men back into youths (a perennial 

 spring, says Peter Martyr, so noble that the drinking of its 

 waters made old men young again). For six months he went 



' Schirren, p. 80. Ellis, Polyn. Ees., vol. ii. p. 47. EUis, 'Hawaii;' London, 

 1827, p. 399. '^ Turner, p. 353. 



' For etym. etc. of Batara Gruru, see W. v. Humboldt, Eawi-Spr., vol. i. p. lOOj 

 Schirreu, p. 116 ; also Cravffurd, Introd., p. exviti. and s. vv. batara, guru. 



