mily life.

There is no reason to think that the New Zealanders are more akin to
the modern Malays than they are to the Australian blacks; nor have
attempts to connect them with the red men of America or the Toltecs
of Mexico succeeded. They are much more like some of the Aryans of
Northern India. But the truth is, their fortunes before their race
settled in Polynesia are a pure matter of guess-work. Some centuries
ago, driven out by feuds or shortness of food, they left their isles
of reef and palm, and found their way to Ao-tea-roa, as they called
New Zealand.

On the map their new home seems at first sight so isolated and remote
from the other groups of Oceania as to make it incredible that even
the most daring canoe-men could have deliberately made their
way thither. But this difficulty disappears upon a study of the
ascertained voyages of the Polynesians. Among the bravest and most
venturesome navigators of the ocean, the brown mariners studied and
named the stars, winds and currents. As allies they had those friends
of the sailor, the trade-winds. In cloudy weather, when the signs in
the sky were hidden, the regular roll of the waves before the steady
trade-wind was in itself a guide.[1] Their large double-canoes joined
by platforms on which deck-houses were built were no despicable
sea-boats, probably just as good as the vessels in which the
Phoenicians circumnavigated Africa. Even their single canoes were
sometimes between 100 and 150 feet long, and the crews of these,
wielding their elastic paddles, kept time in a fashion that has won
respect from the coxswain of a University eight. For their long
voyages they stored water in calabashes, carried roots and dried fish,
and had in the cocoa-nut both food and drink stored safely by nature
in the most convenient compass. In certain seasons they could be
virtually sure of replenishing their stock of water from the copious
tropical or semi-tropical rains. Expert fishermen, they would miss no
opportunity of catching fish by the way. They made halting-places of
the tiny islets which, often uninhabited and far removed from the
well-known groups, dot the immense waste of the Pacific at great
intervals. The finding of their stone axes or implements in such
desolate spots enables their courses to be traced. Canoe-men who could
voyage to solitary little Easter Island in the wide void towards
America, or to Cape York in the distant west, were not likely to find
insuperable