POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
51 
canoes were drifted from a remote distance to one of the 
Marian islands. Captain Cook found in the island of 
Wateo inhabitants of Tahiti, who had been drifted by 
contrary winds in a canoe, from some islands to the 
eastward, unknown to the natives. Several parties have, 
within the last few years, reached the Tahitian shores 
from islands to the eastward, of which the Society 
Islanders had never before heard. In 1820, a canoe 
arrived at Maurua, about twenty miles west of Borabora, 
which had come from Rurutu, one of the Austral Islands. 
This vessel had been at sea between a fortnight and 
three weeks, and, considering its route, must have sailed 
seven or eight hundred miles. A more recent instance 
occurred in 1824 ^ a boat belonging to Mr. Williams of 
Raiatea, left that island with a westerly wind for Tahiti. 
The wind changed after the boat was out of sight of 
land. They were driven to the island of Atui, a distance 
of nearly 800 miles in a south-westerly direction, where 
they were discovered several months afterwards. An¬ 
other boat, belonging to Mr. Barff of Huahine, was pass¬ 
ing between that island and Tahiti about the same time, 
and has never since been heard of. The traditions of 
the inhabitants of Rarotogna, one of the Harvey Islands, 
preserve the most satisfactory accounts, not only of sin¬ 
gle parties, at different periods for many generations 
back, having arrived there from the Society Islands, but 
also derive the origin of the population from the island 
of Raiatea. Their traditions according with those of 
the Raiateans on the leading points, afford the strongest 
evidence of these islands having been peopled from 
those to the eastward. 
If we suppose the population of the South Sea Islands 
to have proceeded from east to west, these events 
