508 
COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
Curagoa, is a most interesting account of this island and 
the condition of its population in 1865. 
6. The Union and Ellice Islands. 
The little Tokelau or Union group lies about 350 
miles N.E. of the easternmost of the Navigators’ group, 
and consists of three small islands, inhabited by a 
Christianised people closely resembling the Samoans, and 
speaking an allied dialect. The population is about 
500, and the islands produce little but copra. 
The Ellice group, lately annexed by Great Britain, 
is about 700 miles N.W. of Savaii, and consists of a 
number of low coral islands and atolls, arranged in nine 
clusters, extending over a distance of 360 miles in 
a N.W. by N. and S.E. by S. direction, which axis is 
common to most of the groups of this part of the Pacific. 
The population numbers about 2500, and almost all 
are Christians, mission posts having been established on 
many islands. All can read, and most write. The in¬ 
habitants of Nui speak the language of the Gilbert 
Islanders, and have a tradition that they came from that 
group. All the others speak a dialect of the Samoan 
language, and say they came from Samoa thirty genera¬ 
tions back. They have a very ancient spear or staff, 
which they claim to have brought from Samoa, nam¬ 
ing the particular valley they came from. This valley 
was visited by a missionary, to whom they lent this spear, 
and he found there a tradition of a large party having 
gone to sea and never returning, and, moreover, that the 
wood of which the spear was made was of a kind that grew 
there. We have here proof that traditions of migrations 
among the Polynesians may be trusted, even when so 
remote as thirty generations, or 600 years. In 1863 
