CHAPTER II. 
THE TWO RACES WHICH PEOPLED POLYNESIA. 
It is now just a century since that celebrated navigator, 
Captain Cook, revealed to the nations of one hemisphere 
those who were occupying the larger part of the other. 
The discovery of an island world, inhabited by races so 
long separated from the rest of the human family as to be 
entirely unknown, is not without advantage to civilized man, 
presenting a counterpart of the state his remote ancestors 
were in, and enabling him to regain a page of his own early 
history. 
The knowledge of their language and literature, if such it 
can be called, their religious rites and ceremonies, as well 
as social state, will also tend to throw some light upon the 
path by which they reached their present abodes, and thus 
point to the quarter from whence they originally proceeded. 
The general idea entertained of the Maori race is, that it 
first colonized New Zealand, and that the date of its arrival 
there was quite recent ; this seems to be borne out by their 
own traditions, whilst, however, further research lengthens 
