COMPULSORY MIGRATIONS IN THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 529 



DISTRICT IV. 



After connecting the individual groups of islands in the Pacific 

 Ocean from Pelew to Pauiuotu, there is still the basin of the North 

 Pacific. Instances of accidental voyages, whose point of departure 

 lay within one of the districts already discussed, do not occur, and the 

 point in question concerns only vessels from the continents, especially 

 Asia, which have been swept out of their course. 



The Bonin Islands (properly Bunin-Siam, that is, uninhabited islands) 

 were discovered in the year 1G75, when a Japanese junk was cast 

 ashore there; 1 and in 1G90 Japanese, who often made voyages to the 

 Ladrones, were carried away to Manila.' In the year 18G9, a Chinese 

 junk, which had been swept from the Liukiu Islands, was stranded 

 upon Baker Island. In 1836, the figurehead of a ship from China was 

 found in Metalanim at Ponape. 3 It is singular that no connection from 

 the groups of islands already established can be made with the Sand- 

 wich Islands. Vague traditions and ethnographical characteristics 

 among the Hawaiians, it is true, point to Polynesia, but there is no 

 event which would permit us to deduce positively that the natural con- 

 ditions for bringing the Hawaiians into a necessary connection with the 

 other islanders have existed. 4 Yet there are abundant reasons of a 



Fakuafo (9° 20' S.,171°4'W.) of the Union group; also of the floating ashore of 

 clubs which must have come from Viti or Samoa. The instance of a craft being 

 carried out of her course to Raratonga is only to he inferred from the traditions 

 existing there; people from the Society Islands are said to have arrived at various 

 times by accident, but the Raratongans also trace their origin to Raiatea, and this 

 coincides with the beliefs of the inhabitants of this latter island- (Ellis I, p. 126.) 

 Beeckey (I, p. 60) mentions various errors of reckoning, which we will pass over 

 here. Behrens, a traveling companion of Roggewein, was driven, during his short 

 voyage from the island of Juan Fernandez to Easter Island, 318 (corrected to 204) 

 English miles farther west than he expected to be. With Blossom the difference in 

 the same region amounted to 270 miles; and when La Peyrouse went from Con- 

 ception to Hawaii, during Avhich passage he touched at Easter Island, he noticed 

 that he had made an error in his reckoning of 300 miles. 



•Geogr. Handbuch, by R. Andree (for school atlas), page 370. 



2 From similar events in earlier times the fact may bo inferred that in the eastern 

 portions of the Malay Archipelago, for instance Ceram, legends of white immigrants 

 had existed before the arrival of the first Europeans. (See Bastian Inselgruppen, 

 p 242.) On the other hand, Rein (Japan, p. 449 and following) maintains that nat- 

 ural conditions existed for tracing the population of Japan from the Malay Archi- 

 pelago; other reasons, however, are decidedly against this conjecture. 



G Waitz I, page 225 ; V, page 20; F. Ratzel: Volkerkunde II, page 340 and following. 



•'A ship was once wrecked on Fakaafo (Union group). Hale supposes that it came 

 from Hawaii, because the word "debolo" (in Fakaafo, it is true, with a different 

 meaning (is found in both places (United States Exploring Expedition, V,p. 157.) 

 Traditions of voyages to Nukahiva are not lacking in Hawaii; voyages to Tahiti are 

 even said to have been undertaken (Bastian-Inselgruppen, p. 286.) The general 

 opinion is that the boats of the Hawaiians were formerly larger; voyages were 

 said to last two or three months. (Ellis: Tour through Hawaii, p. 441.) A direct 

 relation is even said to have existed between the New Zealanders and the Sandwich 

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