134 



porter's journal. 



ton. In touching on this subject, 1 expect to show, that a 

 considerable degree of confidence should be placed, not 

 only in their historical relations, but in their accounts of 

 islands which have yet remained undiscovered by navi- 

 gators. 



It has been seen by the traditionary accounts given me 

 by Gattanevva, that Oataia and Ovanova his wife came 

 from an island called Vavao (somewhere below Nooahee- 

 vah) and peopled this island. It is said he brought with 

 him a variety of plants, and that his forty children, with 

 the exception of one, (Po, or night) were named after those 

 plants. Among the group of the Friendly Islands is a fine 

 island called Vavao, which produces every thing in com- 

 mon with Tongataboo, and the other islands of the group ; 

 the productions of which differ little from those of Nooa- 

 heevah. The Friendly Islands are about thirty-five de- 

 grees to the westward of the Washington group, and this 

 circumstance may, by some, be considered as an insur- 

 mountable obstacle to the navigation from the former to 

 the latter, on the supposition that the winds in this part of 

 the world always blow from the eastward. If this was 

 the case, and there were no intermediate islands, the diffi- 

 culty of getting so far to windward in canoes, however 

 perfect, would be great, and perhaps it would have been 

 altogether impossible to have surmounted them. This, 

 however, is not the case ; the winds, sometimes for seve- 

 ral days together, blow from the northwest, as well as 

 from the southwest, and remove all difficulties as to the 

 navigation from the leeward to the windward islands. 

 This I myself experienced on leaving the islands, for in 

 three days from the time of my departure, I made nine 

 degrees of longitude easterly, the winds blowing chiefly 

 from N.N.E. to N.W. A continuation of winds equally 

 favourable would have enabled me in twelve days to have 

 navigated from the Friendly to the Washington Islands. 

 But it is not likely that the N.W. or S.W. winds prevail 

 for so long a period at any one time, nor was it necessary 

 Oataia should have made so short a passage. He had 

 many places where he could stop and recruit among the 

 Society Islands and the Archipelago situated to windward, 

 as well as many other islands scattered along his track. 

 They speak the same language, and^ in fact, are of the 



