ON THE ORIGIN AND MIGEATIONS OF THE POLYNESIAN NATION. 46 



less isles of the Pacific. At all events, since the islands of the 

 Pacific were first known to civilized men, there have been numer- 

 ous instances of all these modes — by accident, by the event of 

 war, and by the spirit of adventure — of carrying population to 

 the most distant islands. The captain of the vessel in which I 

 made my first voyage from Sydney to England, in the year 

 1824, having previously been the master of a whaler in the 

 Pacific, told me that on one occasion he happened to fall in with 

 a canoe with a number of natives on board who had accidentally 

 been driven to sea by a sudden gale, and having nearly expended 

 all their provisions, were utterly unable to find their way back to 

 their native isle. The benevolent shipmaster took them all on board 

 his vessel and supplied them with the necessary food for their 

 subsistence. But as it would have taken him about three hun- 

 dred miles out of his proper course to carry them to their native 

 island, he merely gave them a compass, and showing them how to 

 use it he left them to pursue their homeward voyage themselves. 

 In due time the summits of the mountains of Tahiti, their native 

 isle, hove in sight, and the natives leaped and danced for joy at 

 sight of them in their canoe. Then looking first at the land and then 

 at the compass, their mysterious guide, which they supposed alive, 

 they exclaimed, "The cunning little thing — it saw it all the time!'* 



The next questioa before us is from what portion of the habit- 

 able globe has the Polynesian race been derived, and with what 

 other family or tribe of the earth's inhabitants does it exhibit any 

 affinity ? 



Before attempting to answer this question, I would observe 

 that there are certain writers who maintain that the Polynesians 

 could not possibly have come from the westward or the continent 

 of Asia, from the prevalence of the easterly or trade winds of 

 both hemispheres. De Zuniga, a Spanish writer of some celebrity, 

 and the author of a history of the Philippine Islands, in which he 

 held office under the Spanish Grovernment, maintains that the 

 Polynesians could never have made their way across the Pacific 

 from the westward, in consequence of the uniform prevalence of 

 the easterly trade winds in that ocean. He therefore advances 

 the singular hypothesis that the South Sea Islands were originally 

 peopled from America, and alleges in proof of it the remarkable 

 resemblance of the language of the American Indians of Chili, of 

 which certain specimens were contained in the history of that 

 country by the Spanish historian Er9illa, to that of Tagala in 

 the Philippine Islands; forgetting that the natives of continents are 

 never maritime people like those of islands, and not taking into 

 consideration the obvious fact that even if the American Indians 

 had been disposed to maritime adventure, they might have made thou- 

 sands of voyages from the west coast of America ere ever they could 

 hit upon any one of the Islands of the Pacific, the nearest of 



