OF THE HUMAN RACE. 



651 



Arcliipelago, to Japan, to Kamschatka, and to Australia, 

 we are stopped by the vast Pacific— except at one point, 

 Kamschatka, and there, by the Aleutian isles, is an easy road 

 to America. Now it is not probable that intercourse should 

 have been begun by water, between various points on those 

 extensive shores, (reaching from 60°, N. lat., to 40°, S. lat.), 

 without numerous accidents happening, such as vessels, boats, 

 canoes, or rafts being carried out of sight of land by storms ; 

 when, ignorant how to steer as their crews must have been, 

 they were driven before the wind till they reached some un- 

 known land, or were engulfed in ocean. 



Many such vessels, out of the numbers which must have 

 been tempest-tost among currents and dangers of every kind 

 incident to navigation, may have failed in finding land before 

 their store of provision was consumed, and their crews reduced 

 to the horrible necessity of feeding upon human flesh. When 

 once the natural antipathy to cannibalism was overcome, recur- 

 rence to similar food would have been less revolting on other 

 occasions ; especially if, excited by rage or animosity, and de- 

 prived of animal food, men had accustomed themselves to anti- 

 cipate satisfying their hunger by the flesh of a miserable slave, 

 or even of a late friend whom accident had estranged and 

 turned into a blood-thirsty enem}^ 



Looking over a modern chart of the Pacific we see a multi- 

 tude of islands scattered, like stars over the sky, from the Indian 

 archipelago to Salas y Gomez whence to Mas-a-fuera, on 

 the South American coast, the distance is not fourteen hun- 

 dred miles ; and to the main land itself, about eighteen hun- 

 dred. It is possible that other islands may have existed, 

 but we now find a comparatively short distance between Easter 

 Island and South America ; besides favouring circumstances 

 of wind and weather which lead me to believe that a line of 

 population went in that direction. It is not impossible that 

 vessels should have crossed from New Zealand to South Ame- 

 rica, running always before the fresh westerly winds so preva- 

 lent southward of 38° ; neither is it at all unlikely, on the 

 * Near Easter Island. 



