Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

474 AUSTRALASIA.currents. In these waters hurricanes are rare, although they blow at times withextreme violence, especially in the Low Archipelago and in Samoa. In 1878 acyclone passing over Tuamotu swept away Anaa, the capital. Another tremendoustyphoon visited Samoa in March, 1889, and almost completely wrecked theAmerican and German fleets riding at anchor in the harbour of Apia. TheBritish cruiser Calliope alone escaped uninjured by making for the open sea inthe teeth of such a gale as had not been known in the archipelago for nearly thirtyyears.The hilly islands, such as Nuka-hiva, Tahiti, Raratonga, Upolu, and Savaii,lying along the track of the trade-winds, receive an abundant rainfall at least ontheir windward slopes. But the low insular groujjs, which are unable to arrestthe moist atmospheric currents, are much drier, and at times never receive a singledownpour for years together. The islands lying within this almost rainless zonewere, till lately, covered with thick deposits of guano, and some are even stillworked with profit. Such are Baker, the neighbouring Howlands, and farthereast Jarvis and Maiden.In its flora and fauna Equatorial Polynesia is essentially Melanesian. AlthoughAmerican forms occur, nearly all its plants and animals have come from the west,which would seem to imply that these archipelagoes are not surviving fragmentsof a submerged continent. Tahiti, Samoa, and other lands enjoying a copiousrainfall are clothed with an exuberant tropical vegetation, but distinct animal andvegetable species are everywhere few in number. In the Low Archipelago Grayfailed to discover more than 28 or 30 indigenoas plants, and before the arrival ofthe whites a species of rat, said to have been half domesticated in Mangareva, wasthe only mammal found in, equatorial Polynesia. Here also a centipede 6 incheslong is the only venomous animal.Inhabitants ofPot,ynesia..From the ethnical standpoint Polynesia forms a distinct domain in the oceanicworld, although its inhabitants do not appear to be altogether free from mixturewith foreign elements. The vestiges of older civilisations differing from thepresent even prove that human m'grations and revolutions have taken place in thisregion on a scale large enough to cause the displacement of whole races. Thecurious moniiments of Easter Island, although far inferior in artistic work to thewood carvings of Birara and New Zealand, may perhaps be the witnesses of aformer culture, no traditions of which have survived amongst the present aborigines.These monuments may possibly be the work of a Papuan people, for skulls foundin the graves differ in no essential feature from those of New Guinea. The" statues " are enormous basalt rocks, one no less than 23 feet long, representingthe head and bust of persons with uniformly low-forehead, prominent superciliaryarches, long nose, wide nostrils, large mouth, thin lips, and stern expression.According to Clements Markham they resemble the Aymara (Bolivian and Peruvian)more than the present Polynesian type. Most of them are erected on basaltledges in the interior of a crater, and some have been left unfinished, or not com-