170 SISSANO. 
existence of an autochthonous population at the period of Polynesian 
occupancy. At the arrival of this and other migrations in Nuclear 
Polynesia a very general diffusion took place; the trace upon the 
chart denotes in its simplest form the fact of such diffusion; it is not 
intended to imply the particular preference of Samoa over any other 
point of such distribution. 
B; 
Assuming the presence at the time of Proto-Polynesian migration 
of races alien to this ethnic stock at certain points in Melanesia, we 
should look for various forms and various degrees of contamination 
of persisting Polynesian linguistic material along the migration track. 
In earlier works I have discussed at length the character of such 
migration. In this connection I renew attention upon one of the 
factors which seems above all others to dominate the problem. A 
social unit migrating by land is able to victual itself from the country 
which it traverses, its route is distinctly governed by the available 
food supply, it avoids deserts and other regions in which game and 
grass are scanty. ‘The discovery that the country just pioneered will 
not support the migration is promptly followed by retracing the track 
to the last region in which victual is abundant; a new route is sought 
by scouts where the food-supply promises to suffice. So much for 
the sweep of Attila across Asia and Europe; so much for the conquest 
of our western plains as far as the mountain backbone of the conti- 
nent and beyond to the founding of our great empire on the Pacific; 
so much for the great trek of the Boers out from Cape Colony to a 
greater Africa of freedom beyond. Migration by land must follow 
the line of the most abundant victual. 
But migration by sea is far other. The sea is ploughed by many 
keels, but no crop grows for the feeding of the sailor. His last article 
of food and water must be carried between the port he has left and the 
haven of his desire. When food fails the sailor the sailor fails the ship; 
a few days the ship of starvation drifts untillered, the sport of wind and 
wave, awaiting the friendly gale which shall give it sea burial, and there 
an end. In these very waters we have the record of voyaging to the 
edge of failure of victual—Bligh in his crowded boat after the mutiny 
of the Bounty, the Pandora’s boats with Bligh’s mutineers, both 
winning through to the East Indies in starvation. We can only 
imagine what mute tragedies of this sea must have accompanied the 
ignorant navigation of the Polynesian migration, all passed from 
human knowledge because none survived, even as none survived to 
tell the bitter voyage into the unknown of those French sailors of 
La Pérouse who built a boat on Vanikoro out of the wreck of their 
frigate and sailed away to starve. When our whalemen scoured the 
Pacific they provisioned for three years and they could always make 
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