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THE KINGS OF THE SEA 111
who came to America between ice ages, when the passage over
Bering Strait was not frozen solid.
The South Pacific current moves north along the coast of Chile
up to the northern part of Peru, then turns west and traverses
the Pacific north of Tahiti and south of New Caledonia and the
Hebrides. It skirts the east coast of Australia, hooks to the north
and then twists south to evade New Zealand before returning to
Chile by way of Easter Island and the Juan Fernandez island
group off Chile. This current played a decisive part in the migration
of Polynesian people to South America or vice versa. The
only thing that we have to find out is who brought civilization to
whom. In my opinion, the Polynesians are much more civilized
than the Indians of South America, but that does not prove a
thing, because I have been off the mark in my judgment many
times.
The north current of the Indian Ocean starts from the east
coast of Africa at the latitude of Zanzibar and flows north up to
the estuary of the Indus River in Pakistan, then turns southeast
to Ceylon, reverts in a northerly direction up to the River
Ganges in the Bay of Bengal, flows south to Sumatra, in Indonesia,
where it takes a western direction and flows back to
Zanzibar by way of the Diego Garcia and gave passage to Egyptians
from the Gulf of Aden and Sumerians or Hindus from the
Gulf of Oman, and, after a cruise along the Sunda Isles, brought
them back to Africa, the Mozambique Channel and the current
of Agulhas that led them to the South Atlantic current for a passage
to the Amazon, the Antilles or Mexico.
The southern current of the Indian Ocean has not been
sufficiently explored. We know that it runs south along the coast
of Madagascar, turns east at the latitude of Cape of Good Hope
and crosses the most desolate ocean of the world, passing the islands
of New Amsterdam and St. Paul, to arrive at the West
Australian coast, where it changes direction and returns to
Madagascar, flov^dng north of the islands of Reimion and Mauritius.
We do not know the history or prehistory of this current,
which probably also had importance in the very distant past
when the continent of Antarctica was not ice covered and could
have been the cradle of an advanced civilization.
In aU three oceans there is an equatorial countercurrent be-