Origin and Migrations of the Polynesian Nation. 79 



in the South Sea Islands for perhaps thousands of years past, it 

 were impossible to estimate the prodigious expenditure of human 

 life, and the prodigious amount of human suffering at which the 

 South Sea Islands, situated as some of them are at vast distances 

 from the nearest islands, must have been originally peopled in the 

 course of long ages past. Where one canoe, in the circumstances 

 I have stated, was fortunate enough to reach some previously 

 unknown land in the vast ocean, we may conclude that many must 

 have been lost, after scenes of bloodshed and cannibalism had 

 been transacted on board them at the very idea of which the 

 imagination revolts with horror. 



The next question in this inquiry is from what portion of the 

 habitable globe has the Polynesian race been derived, and with 

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

 exhibit any affinity ? 



I would observe, therefore, before attempting to give a direct 

 answer to this question, that there are certain writers who main- 

 tain 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, who is followed by Mr. 

 Ellis, long a missionary in the South Sea Islands, and the author 

 of an interesting work entitled " Polynesian Researches," main- 

 tains 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 wind. But the testimony 

 of that eminent and lamented navigator La Perouse is decisive as 

 to the invalidity of such an objection. " Westerly winds," says 

 that eminent navigator, " are at least as frequent as those from 

 the eastward in the vicinity of the Equator, in a zone of seven or 

 eight degrees north and sou J h ; and they" (that is the winds in 

 the equatorial regions) " are so variable that it is very little more 

 difficult to make a voyage to the eastward than to the westward. "f 

 To the same effect Captain (afterwards Admiral) Hunter, E.N., 

 the second Governor of New South Wales, observes, in the 

 narrative of his voyage from Port Jackson to Batavia in the year 

 1791 : — " It was very clear to me, from the winds we had ex- 

 perienced since we came to the northward of the Line, that at 

 this time of the year (the end of July), and generally during the 

 height of the south-west monsoon in the China seas, these 

 (westerly) winds do sometimes extend far to the eastward of the 

 Philippine Islands, and frequently blow in very heavy gales." 

 For my own part, as to the alleged uniformity of the trade winds 

 in the equatorial regions, the second time I crossed the Line 



f La Perouse's Voyages, chap. 25. 



