Barstow.—Stray Thoughts on Mahori or Maori Migrations. 231 
till near midnight for a land breeze, which would generally carry us six or 
seven miles on our way. The trade wind dies away near land at night, and 
a wind off the land takes its place for a space varying in proportion to the 
size of the island and the heat of the weather, 
On one occasion we found at our stopping place, hauled up on the beach, 
a large double canoe, not made like the Mangaea or Aitutake double 
canoes, of two trees each fitting into and over one another at the centre, but 
built of many pieces of Tamanu wood, the largest probably not exceeding 
four feet in length by one foot in width, and of all kinds of shapes, sewn 
together with cocoa-nut fibre or sennet, and thus forming a pair of vessels of 
thirty-five feet or so in length (they were longer than the whaleboat), seven 
or eight feet in breadth, and five feet deep. These canoes were joined by 
beams across their gunwales, being some nine or ten feet apart. On the 
beams a platform, on which was a small hut of palm leaves. Each canoe 
had one mast, near the bows of one and near the stern of the other. 
This canoe contained some nine or ten men, four or five women, and as 
many children, belonging to an island of the Paumotu Group, some 200 or 
900 miles to the eastward. I forget the name of the spot. They had left 
their home in search of a party who had been blown to sea some time 
previously, and had visited many islands during their voyage— Huahine 
and Riatea among the number—without hearing tidings of their lost friends, 
and were now on their return home ; having got thus far on their way back, 
they had hauled their canoe ashore, and were waiting for a fair wind for 
its continuance. 
Our party went on that night, and I thought no more about that canoe, 
until rather more than six months later I again made the same trip, and 
to my astonishment at the same place was the same canoe. We learned 
that the wind had never changed in all that time but once, and then had 
reverted to its wonted direction by the time the craft was afloat. The 
people had lived upon fish and the cocoa-nuts, bread fruit, taro, faiis, and 
other vegetables which were to be had for gathering. One child had died, 
and another been born. I remember that I subsequently heard that they 
had departed. 
I mentioned these facts to the missionaries living on the island—a Mr. 
Simpson, who having been master of a collier between London and the 
North was likely to notice changes of weather, and Mr. Henry, who was the 
survivor of the first missionaries to Tahiti, having sailed from England in 
the good ship ** Duff," in 1796—and was told by them that occasionally the 
easterly wind blew the year through, unvaried save by three or four squalls 
of a few hours’ duration, though in other years two or three weeks westerly 
wind in October to December was customary. 
