192 
ORIGIN, AS TRACED BY THE LANGUAGE. 
many may have followed the caravans across Central Asia, 
Thibet, and Tartary, until they reached the Eastern Coast, 
and thence, from island to island, this race, doomed to wander, 
may have done so, either intentionally or otherwise, as ships 
are constantly picking up large canoes, which have drifted 
away from their island homes. Doubtless this has ever been the 
case, and whilst numbers have thus miserably perished, some 
few have escaped, and become the inhabitants of many a lone 
island of the Pacific Ocean. There is no saying where they 
may not have gone. The first and most civilized settlers of the 
Americas seem to have passed by the Aleutian Isles to the 
continent; others, drifted by the course of currents, have 
reached the Sandwich Isles, and thence gone even to Easter 
Isle. The natives, in their traditions, preserve the name of 
the island they came from, which is Hawaiki. In this name, 
which is identical with that of Hawaii, we have a proof how 
languages change in process of time. The Maori preserve the 
use of the k and ng ; their ancestors have lost them. Thus, 
were the Anglo-Australians to be entirely cut off from the 
parent stock for several centuries, it is reasonable to suppose 
that changes quite equal to these would take place in the 
language; but that the offset should preserve the original 
purity of their tongue is the most remarkable. The Anglo- 
Americans make a similar boast, but with what truth is 
another thing. Hawaii is still the name of the largest of the 
Sandwich Isles. It only wants the k, this the New Zealander 
called *Ilawaiki tawiti nui, or the very distant Hawaii; 
thence they came to Ilawaiki patala, or nearer Haw r aiki, 
literally the lesser isle, being smaller than Hawaiki, that 
is Tahaiti; and having remained there until their numbers 
were too large for the size of the island, they again migrated 
to Hawaiki ki te moutere. Supposing this to have been Easter 
Island, which is situated at the end of the south-east trade 
winds, we shall have a very natural and easy course to Coromandel 
Harbour, New Zealand, which, as we have already remarked, 
bears the same name as that of Easter Isle. All their 
* I Kunemai i kawaiki. The seed of our coming is from Hawaiki. 
Te kune kai te kune langata, The seed of food, the seed of man. 
