OF THE HUMAN RACE. 



653 



of land by current or wind, or by both, and taken into a 

 steady trade, or lasting westerly wind, it would be impossible 

 for her to struggle against it for many days ; she must even- 

 tually run before it as the last expedient, with the hope, often 

 forlorn, of falling in with some land to leeward. 



When we reflect on the tedious coasting voyages undertaken 

 formerly, even in historical times; and on the quantities of 

 provision embarked for those long passages ; may we not 

 infer that the earliest explorers would take as much food with 

 them as their rafts orjvessels could carry ; and therefore, that 

 if driven out to sea, they were capable, in some instances at 

 least, of holding out for a considerable length of time without 

 having recourse to the last alternative. 



If a vessel were drifted from Easter Island^ by a north- 

 west wind (occasional in July, August, or September,) she 

 would be carried towards the coast of Chile; she might be 

 drifted directly there, or she might be driven eastward 

 for a time, and then, in consequence of wind changing, 

 drifted towards the north ; so that it would be uncertain 

 whether Chile, Peru, the Galapagos Islands, Mexico, or 

 the wide ocean would receive the lost wanderers. It is also 

 possible that a vessel may have been driven to South Ame- 

 rica from the neighbourhood of New Zealand ; but this does 

 not appear nearly so probable as the former conjecture. That 

 the Araucanians about Valdivia originally arrived in that 

 country by water, from the west, is I think indicated by what 

 is stated in page 400 of this volume. 



But while man was thus spreading eastward across the Pa- 

 cific, are we to suppose that no vessel was ever blown off the 

 coast of Africa, or that of Spain, and drifted by easterly winds 

 across the Atlantic ? How easy is the voyage, before a steady 

 trade wind, from the Canary or Cape Verde Islands to the 

 West Indies or Brazil ; from the west coast of Africa to the 



* At Easter Island in 1722, Roggewein found idolaters and fire- 

 worshippers, and he says that one of the chief idols was called Dago. 

 In 1774, people differently disposed, were found there by Cook ; the 

 idols still remained, but no traces were observed of fire-worship. 



