76 Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 



left their native islands on such hazardous yoyages as the one I 

 hare just referred to, and having never afterwards been heard 

 of. 



But the state of society that has hitherto subsisted, from time 

 immemorial, in the islands, affords an additional means of ac- 

 counting for the distribution of man over the vast plains of the 

 Pacific. The South Sea Islands have, in all past time, been, like 

 the ancient G-reek democracies, the scene of frequent, if not per- 

 petual, civil war ; and the cruel practice of the victors has gene- 

 rally, if not uniformly, been to exterminate the vanquished, if 

 possible, either by putting them to death as soon as they caught 

 them on land, or by forcing them out to sea. 



In the year 1799, when Finow, a Friendly Island chief, ac- 

 quired the supreme power in that group of islands, after a bloody 

 and calamitous civil war, in which his enemies were completely 

 overpowered, the barbarian forced a number of the vanquished to 

 embark in their canoes and put to sea ; and during the revolution 

 that issued in the subversion of paganism in Tahiti the rebel 

 chiefs threatened to treat the English missionaries and their 

 families in a similar way. 



On glancing at the chart of the Pacific Ocean, it would seem 

 probable that the first inhabitants of New Zealand had reached 

 that island from the Priendly Islands, the nearest to New Zea- 

 land of all the other Polynesian groups, and distant only about 

 eight or nine hundred miles to the northward. The internal 

 evidence afforded by the dialect of New Zealand confirms this 

 presumption, as it bears a much closer resemblance to that of the 

 Friendly than to that of the more distant Society Islands ; while 

 the tradition of the natives is that the first inhabitants of the 

 island arrived frem the northward. Supposing, then, that New 

 Zealand had been originally discovered and taken possession of 

 by a party that had sailed, perhaps, on some short voyage, from 

 the island of Tonga, the principal island in the Friendly Island 

 group, and been accidentally driven to sea, or by a party of van- 

 quished islanders who nadbeen driven out to sea by their ruthless 

 conquerers, it is evident that, coming from within the Tropics, there 

 would be no word in their language to denote such a substance as 

 snoiv. On seeing the strange substance, therefore, for the first 

 time after their arrival in New Zealand, and ascertaining its cold- 

 ness and insipidity, it would be quite natural for them to exclaim, 

 when sorrowfully recollecting the comfortable country they had 

 left for ever, " Tongadiro /" Tonga lost! This is the singular 

 phrase in the New Zealand dialect, for snow. 



Whether the first inhabitants of New Zealand had been driven 

 from their native island by accident, or by the fortune of war, it 

 is impossible to ascertain. There is one singular feature, how- 

 ever, in the pohtical aspect of that portion of the Polynesian 



