COMPULSORY MIGRATIONS IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 523 



the Marianne cluster. ' A chief from Faraulep, just mentioned, was once 

 driven by accident upon Mogmog, near Yap. He set sail for Guahan, 

 but missed his way; and the same voyage was once made by a little 

 boat which carried only three men, but sailed faster than the two larger 

 vessels with which it came. 2 A very remarkable case was related by 

 Bua, a native of Nukuor. He left his home on the 6th of December, 

 1876, and with a coverlet for a sail tacked about for seventeen days to 

 reach Ponapl, but missed it and was stranded on the Minto Eeef, 450 

 meters due north of his starting point, where he was obliged to support 

 life until September, 1878, when the schooner Lotus found him and 

 brought him to Tuch. 3 



The other instances of compulsory voyages in our first district belong 

 to the eastern islands, and bring these groups into connection with each 

 other and also with the western ones. Eadack and Ralick maintain a 

 constant intercourse and therefore accidental voyages frequently occur 

 here, though of less length than in the examples previously cited. 

 While Ohamisso remained in Ailuk a young chief from Mesid (probably 

 Mejit, only 100 kilometers eastward) was driven ashore there in a little 

 fishing boat by a tempest; 4 and many years before five persons from 

 Repith-Urur, an island of the Gilbert Archipelago, r> were cast upon the 

 island of Relich in the Balick chain. Besides, there were on the island 

 of Aiiik of the Kaben group, a man and a woman, and on Arno, for- 

 merly mentioned, two men and a woman, also from Bepith-lTrur, who 

 had been borne thither by the winds and current. During Kadu's res- 

 idence on Aur two boats, each containing a man and a woman, arrived 

 there from the same island of the Gilbert Archipelago." Lastly, a case 

 very interesting in itself and analogous to that of castaways, though 

 less important, is the appearance of driftwood and the floating of the 

 wreckage of ships, when the question is the possibility of the disper- 

 sion of peoples over the ocean in connection with the mechanical move- 

 ments of the atmosphere and the sea. 7 On Tabual Island, of the Aur 

 group, Chamisso found a woman from Bogha, who, while trying to carry 

 leaves of the cocoanut palm from one island to another, was caught by 

 the tide and swept away; her cocoanut fronds served as a raft, and 

 five days after she was washed ashore on Utirik. 8 



1 Chamisso : Bemerkungen, pages 117 and 140. 



2 It is known that people from the Caroline Islands often sail to Guahan; there- 

 fore instances of vessels driven out of their course frequently occur in this region. 



3 Ethnograph. anthropol. Abteilung des Museum Godeffroy in Hamburg, page 342. 



4 Chamisso: Tagebuch, page 195. 



5 Ibid. : Bemerkungen, page 148. 



6 Ibid., page 184. 



'We might here express the conjecture that the dissemination of the cocoa palm, 

 and especially of certain land animals, would be found associated with the disper- 

 sion of human beings. For instance, there are uninhabited islands, and these are 

 destitute of these palm trees, as the Ducie Islands (Paumotu) ; Timoe, on the con- 

 trary, lying about 10 degrees westerly is inhabited, but has no cocoa palms. 

 (Zeitschr. d. Gesellsch. f. Erdk. Berlin, 1870, p. 346.) 



8 Chamisso: Tagebuch, page 184. Kubary: Ethnogr. Beitrage, pages 47 and 120. 



