Chapter III. the Indian Ocean.

Leaving the Sabaians in the occupation of a territory extending from the Persian Gulf across the Straits of Babelmandeb to the waters of the Nile Branches in Africa, cultivating their fields, dispatching fleets to India and to the south of Madagascar, conveying by caravan or by sea great stores of merchandise to Syria and Mesopotamia, thence to find its way to Rome, executing justice after the manner of their ancestors, and making contracts in writing such as we find on the Chaldæan tablets, defending their country against the attacks of a power that had subdued the world, and adoring the heavenly bodies with so zealous and splendid a worship that that type of religion has gained the name of Sabaism, let us inquire as to the means of travelling by sea which the nations of those days possessed.

In the tomb of Rameses the Great is a representation of a naval combat between the Egytians and some other people, supposed to be Phoenicians, whose huge ships are propelled by sails.

The fleet of Sesostris^* consisted of four hundred ships; and when Semiramis invaded India she was opposed by four thousand vessels.

Solomon made "navy ships" at Ezion-geber, which is beside Eloth on the shore of the Red Sea. That fleet was manned by the servants of Solomon and by the servants of Hiram, king of Tyre, and it went to Ophir and fetched thence gold and brought it to King Solomon (1 Kings ix). From the same Ophir the fleet

^* Sesostris is the Greek rendering of Sestura, a surname of Ramases II.

page 49 of Hiram is said to have brought not only gold but great plenty of almug trees and precious stones (1 Kings x). The seaport of Ezion-geber has been identified by some scholars with Akaba, on the north-east extremity of the Red Sea. It was in the same harbour that the ships of Tarshish were broken, which Jehoshaphat had made for similar expeditions (1 Kings xxii). These ships also brought silver, ivory, apes, and peacocks from some country not specified.

"A great deal has been written to find out where Ophir was, and though the question does not admit of a definite answer, the evidence seems to me," says Max Müller ("Science of Language"), "to incline in favour of India, or of a seaport on the south-east coast of Arabia, carrying on active trade with India." Müller shows that the names used for many of the things brought, such as peacocks and almug, are not Hebrew, and argues, in a convincing manner, that as gutta-percha and tobacco have been imported into English the names of those things were imported into Hebrew. They clearly, he says, point to the country whence they came, if we inquire as to what language the words belong to; and he finds that country to be India. It follows, then, that either Hiram's fleets sailed to India or that they stopped at the great emporium Saba or Agane, and that the Sabæan fleets made the rest of the voyage. In either case the result is the same, i.e., in Solomon's days long sea voyages were made.

The extent of the traffic may be gathered from the record of 1 Kings x., "Now the weight of gold that came to Solomon in one year was six hundred threescore and six talents of gold, beside that he had of merchantmen, and of the traffic of the spice merchants, and of all the kings of Arabia, and of the governors of the country."

Commercial emporiums existed in Arabia at the time of Diodorus Siculus, who, after describing the great wealth of Saba in gold, ivory, and precious stones, relates that there were several islands near where merchants from all parts of the world landed, and particularly from Potana (Pattana), which Alexander had founded near the river Indus.

It appears from the testimony of Herodotus that Skylax of Caryanda, who was sent by Dareius, navigated the Indus to Caspatyrus in Pactyice, and thence along the Erythræan Sea by the Arabian Gulf to the coast of Egypt. The term Erythræan Sea was not confined by Herodotus to the Persian Gulf, but included the northern portion of the Indian Ocean.

Diodorus tells a remarkable story. According to him Jambulus, the son of a merchant, on his way to the spice countries, was taken prisoner by the Ethiopians, and, after a time, with one other companion, was placed in a boat and left to his fate. After a long voyage he came to an island rich in all kinds of natural productions and 5,000 stadia round. Jambulus stayed there seven years, and thence went to Palibothra (the modern Patna in India), where he was well received by the king. Mr. Vaux, of the British Museum, thinks that the narrative, though fabulous in its details, is founded on fact, and points to an early intercourse between the shores of Eastern Africa and India.

Pharaoh Necho's expedition circumnavigated Africa. His fleet left the Red Sea, and after three years, during which time the sailors landed and planted crops twice, returned home by the Mediterranean. Herodotus relates that he could not believe the account, because the officers said that whilst sailing towards the West the sun was on their right hand. It is an unquestioned fact that at a very early period the Phoenicians made frequent voyages to the British Isles, principally, it is supposed, for the purpose of obtaining tin, a necessary ingredient in the manufacture of bronze.

Strabo speaks of voyages to the Ganges, and remarks: "Very few of the merchants who now sail from Egypt and the Persian Gulf to India have proceeded as far as the Ganges; and these being ignorant persons were not qualified to give an account of the places they have visited. From one place in India, and from one king, namely, King Pandion, or, according to others, Porus, presents and embassies were sent to Augustus Cæsar."

That the coast of India was the seat of a very early civilisation is attested to the present day by magnificent ruins and inscriptions and by the fragments of a widely-spread tradition.

Mr. Donne is of opinion that the Egyptian fleets proceeded no further than the haven of Sabbata or Mariaba, while the Sabaians, long prior to the voyage of Nearchos (B.C. 330), ventured across the ocean to Ceylon and the Malabar coast. "Their vessels," he says, "were of larger build than the ordinary merchant ships of the Greeks, who, it is recorded, shrank with terror from the Indian Ocean."

It is most probable that Mr. Donne is correct in supposing that the Egyptian fleets did not usually traverse the ocean, for Hannu's voyage in the reign of Thothmes to Agade is recorded in the inscription already referred to in terms of extravagant exultation, and the scribe concludes: "No such thing was ever done before."

One of the ships built by Ptolemy Philopater was 420 feet long and 57 feet wide, with 40 banks of oars. The largest oars were 57 feet long. This huge ship was rowed by 4,000 rowers, its sails were managed by 400 sailors, and 3,000 soldiers stood in ranks on its decks. The royal barge, in which the king and court moved on the quiet waters of the Nile, was nearly as large as this ship of war. It was 330 feet long and 45 feet wide; it was fitted up with state rooms and private rooms, and was nearly 60 feet high to the top of the awning. (Vide Athenæus' long and interesting account of these ships. The method of fastening the brazen bolts is very curious.)

Hiero of Syracuse built, under the superintendence of Archimedes, a vessel which consumed in its construction the material for fifty galleys; it contained galleries, gardens, stables, fishponds, mills, baths, a temple of Venus, and an engine to throw stones three hundred pounds in weight, and arrows 36 feet^* long. It had four anchors of wood and eight of iron. The floors of this monstrous vessel were inlaid with scenes from Homer's "Iliad." (Goodrich's "Columbus.")

It is probable that in the earliest times the vessels were sheeted with metal. A Roman ship of the time of Trajan has been recovered from Lake Ricciole. The outside was covered with sheets of lead fastened with small copper nails. Even the use of

^* Athenæus says eighteen feet long.

page 52 iron chains in place of ropes for the anchors was known at an early period. Julius Cæsar tells us that the galleys of the Veneti were thus equipped. (Goodrich's "Columbus.")

The truth is that we are too apt to forget that there have been great and splendid epochs in the history of civilisation and enter prise before the one in which we live.

In those old days the knowledge of navigation was very considerable. The stars supplied the absence of the compass, and one very remarkable group received its name from the Greek word to steer .

From the days of the Phoenicians to the present era there has been no great commercial and sea-going people who have not founded colonies. It is a necessity of their position. Wherever they trade with uncivilised peoples, who usually have articles of commerce, such as sandal-wood or spices, which can be found no-where else, they settle detachments of their own nation on the spot for the purpose of collecting cargoes, and distributing the merchandise which they carry as payment. In other cases nations powerful at sea have founded colonies merely because their navigators have discovered (as it is called) a country which attracts them, and which is possessed at the time by barbarians, a word which is construed to mean a weaker people. There can be no question, i.e., no reasonable doubt, that the Sabaians did as their friends the Phoenicians did, as at a later period the Portuguese and Spaniards did, as the Dutch and English did, and as the latter are still doing, and as the Germans are beginning to do. They formed settlements, which grew, and which constantly received fresh accessions of strength from the mother-country. Madagascar was colonised, and so were the islands of the Indian Ocean, and settlements were made on the east coast of Africa.^*

At what date the name of Saba was reproduced in the Indian archipelago it is impossible to discover. Pliny and Ptolemy, as far as I know, were the first who recorded the geography of those Eastern lands, and it is presumed that it is chiefly from the writings

^* Many authorities might be cited to show a strong relationship in the nguages of Eastern Africa to that spoken by the South Sea Islanders.

page 53 of those authors and from the Periplus that the existing maps of the world as known to the ancients are constructed. The most westerly islands in this sea, on these maps, is a small group near what is now called Sumatra. They bore the name of Sabadeibai Humboldt considers, from the great resemblance of the names, that Ptolemy confounded them with the adjoining island, Sabadidi, as Sumatra was then named. It is not improbable, however, that the navigators and early colonists conferred the name Sabadeibai upon these leeward islands, as descriptive of their sheltered situation, lying to the westward of the large island, and being thus protected from the south-easterly monsoons which blow during two-thirds of the year—the vernacular being Taipai, or smooth water. Sabadidi appears as the name of Sumatra. It is written Jabadius in Smith's Classical Dictionary, after Ptolemy. The name Sumatra was conferred most probably at the time of the Indian invasion, a more recent epoch. There was a town also called Saba on the southern extremity of the Malay peninsula, which in Ptolemy's time bore the name of Promontorium aureæ chersonesi, and the sea on the western side was known under the name of Sinus Sabaracus. The northern promontory of Sabadidi was called Promontorium Argenteum. Java (Saba) does not appear to be mentioned by the classical writers, and obtained its name probably at a later date, as the Sabaians progressed eastwards. It is noteworthy that the Maldive Islands, situated half-way between Africa and Sabadidi, are mentioned also by Ptolemy, who states that their number amounted to 1,378. He must have had information about them, or he would not have known of the existence of that singular oceanic cluster, and the information could not have been obtained otherwise than from sailors or persons traversing the Indian Ocean in sea-going ships who had visited them.

It has been mentioned before that the traveller Niebuhr ("Description de l'Arabie") asserts that Yemen (Arabia Felix) neither produces now, nor ever could have produced, gold. He states, moreover, that the ordinary frankincense of the country is of a very ordinary quality, Sabaia yielding only the species called Liban, while the better sorts of that gum are imported from page 54 Sumatra, Siam, and Java. The Sabaians reported strange dangers connected with the collection of their gums and spices. The spice-woods were said to be the abode of venomous reptiles; one of which, apparently a purple cobra, was aggressive, and springing on intruders, inflicted an incurable wound. It appears probable that the Sabaians, from a very early period, even before the time of Thothmes, imported the gums and incense which were used in embalming the dead, and were so highly valued in the Egyptian temple services, from the islands of the Indian Ocean, where the shrubs that produced them seem to have grown spontaneously, i.e., without artificial assistance. Niebuhr's assertion is uncontradicted, and it is not reasonable to suppose that the great wealth which the Sabaians acquired from their trade in aromatics could have been gained, and their fame maintained, if the articles were of an inferior quality. With the jealousy which often characterises a commercial nation, they would be anxious to exclude all competition, and the tales of dangers to be encountered in the collection of the gums were very probably circulated for the purpose of deterring intruders, though it does not appear certain that the Phœnicians maintained a fleet of sea-going ships in the Arabian waters. It seems equally probable that the gold and silver which so abounded in Sabaia, that its queen could present Solomon with 120 talents, and which Niebuhr assures us could not have been produced in the country itself, must have come from the same part of the world. The Golden Promontory and the Silver Promontory were the names known to Ptolemy for the Malay peninsular and the extreme north of Sabadidi, and it is reasonable to presume that they were conferred because gold and silver were brought thence. Apes and peacocks, which accompanied the royal present of gold, are very abundant in the Sunda Islands.

To fix a date when the colonisation of these islands began is impossible. But it is certain that at the time of the Greek geographers several places were known there which bore the name of Saba, and knowledge even of their names would scarcely have reached those writers if the foundation of the settlements had been recent.

Some notice should be taken of the name of Sabadidi, and of the disappearance of the S from the name, as written by Pliny. Jabadius may have been incorrectly written, the information having been gained, as Strabo says, "through ignorant sailors." Assuming it to be accurately given, it would appear that what Max Müller calls phonetic decay had already commenced in the language; a process which in later times produced marked effects among the dispersed branches of the race, as we shall see hereafter. The name remained unchanged in the town on the mainland, and it also had undergone no decay in the name given to the westerly islands. It may be presumed, then, that those colonies were first formed. How long the Sabaian immigrants remained there before they took possession of the large island, it is impossible to say. Possibly their numbers were not sufficient to make any necessity of extension felt, or possibly races which had been previously driven out of India or Barat by the advance of the Aryans had not yet moved on to Papua and Australia, and the small islands adjoining and extending to New Caledonia, and the Sabaians were not yet strong enough to attack them.^* At length, however, the Sabaians appeared in the large island, and, as usual, called it after their sacred fanes in the old country. Pliny heard of it by its new name. The S had been dropped from the language, and the Hawaians, New Zealanders, and most of the Polynesians have not regained it to this day.^†

The last two syllables in the name Sabadidi are simply the Polynesian diminutive riri; in New Zealand, ririki. Sabadidi or Jabadii means Saba the Less, the reverse of Sir Charles Dilke's idea when he styled his book on the colonies "The Greater Britain." That the r should be written by the foreign grammarian as a d is simply in accordance with a mysterious phonetic

^* According to the traditions of the Polynesians, the islands were without inhabitants when the first immigrants arrived.

^† It is remarkable that Capt. Cook frequently makes the mistake of writing S for a strong aspirate, as, for instance, Shoutouru for Hauturu. The S still exists in Samoa and Fakaafoa, and there Sabai is Sabai still; and truly in the north of New Zealand the aspirate very much resembles an s, especially when following the letter i. In Ceram the name is Sawai; in Papua, according to the missionaries, it takes the form of Saibai.

page 56 rule whose operation can scarcely have escaped observation.^* The tree generally called in New Zealand buridy is properly written puriri. A late lamented friend of mine, who had been in the colony forty years, and was intimately acquainted with the Maori language, used always to pronounce Maori as Maody. Taupiri he called Taupidy, and Kirikiriroa he called Kidikidiroa. The kauri pine appears in books as the kowdy; and even Darwin ("Voyage of the Beagle") writes Kororadeka for Kororareka. Well, then, might Ptolemy call Sabariri Sabadidi, especially when in all probability he received his information from Strabo's "ignorant sailors."

It may be asserted that Ptolemy, when writing Jabadius did not allude to Sumatra, but Java. Authorities may, however, be quoted to show that Sumatra was the island meant. On this subject Col. Yule, in his edition of Marco Polo (1875) remarks: "Polo by no means stands alone in giving the name of Jawa to the island now called Sumatra. The terms Jawa and Jawi were applied by the Arabs to the islands and productions of the archipelago generally, but also especially to Sumatra. Thus Sumatra is the Jawah both of Abulfeda and of Ibu-baluta, the latter of whom spent some time on the island. De Barras says that all the people of Sumatra called themselves by the name of Jawijs. There is reason to believe that the application of the name Java to Sumatra is of very old date." "For the origin of the name Java," Fernander, a very able inquirer, writes, "we must look to that nation and race whose colonies and commerce pervaded the ancient world in prehistoric times—the Cushite Arabians, and among them we find as a protonom the celebrated Saba or Zaba in southern Arabia, a seat of Cushite empire and a commercial emporium from the earliest times."

During the centuries that immediately followed the Christian era the general migration of the nation seems to have progressed more rapidly; for the fame and grandeur of the Sabaian empire in Arabia certainly faded away. Even in the time of Artemidorus the degeneracy of the nation was attracting attention. He says: "By the trade (in aromatics) both the Sabaians and the Gerrhæi have become the richest of all the tribes, and possess a great quantity of wrought articles in gold and silver, as couches, tripods, basins, drinking vessels, to which we must add the costly magnificence of their houses; for the doors, roofs, and walls are variegated with inlaid ivory, gold, silver, and precious stones." He describes the people as greatly enervated by wealth and luxury. "On account of the abundance which the soil produces, the people are lazy and indolent in their mode of life," he says. And again, "The king and those about him pass their lives in effeminate voluptuousness."

It cannot be supposed that a nation so debilitated by luxury would persist in maintaining a prolonged resistance to a powerful enemy when they had become aware that peace and prosperity awaited them in a country as fruitful and beautiful as their own, by simply crossing the ocean, or coasting along the intervening shores, as probably was the general custom of their fleets.

The movement was doubtless accelerated by the attacks of the Roman armies, who ultimately subdued the country, as is recorded by Strabo in a later part of his work. From this historical fact we may gather a conjectural date of the increased emigration. Horace was born B.C. 65, and was fifteen years or so older than Strabo. He wrote his ode, where he speaks of the "non ante devictis regibus Sabææ," perhaps twenty-five years B.C. Strabo recorded the conquest perhaps fifteen years afterwards. The subjugation of the nation, therefore, took place in the interval, that is to say, a few years before the advent of Christ.

The power and integrity of the nation was still further broken by internal dissensions, of which historical evidence is preserved. It is singular that the Polynesian traditions which point to the causes of the abandonment of the ancient homes of the people page 58 scarcely allude to foreign aggressions as a cause of migration, but recount intestine commotions and private wars of retaliation as the forces which compelled involuntary exile. It certainly does not appear that the advance of Roman conquests in Europe had the effect of driving the subjugated nations from their countries; on the contrary, the beaten peoples seem to have been gradually and quietly absorbed into the category of Roman citizens. The difference of race may have operated more powerfully in Arabia in frustrating the usual fusion; still the Sabæan nation, as before stated, were a considerable people, and carried on their lucrative commerce for two or three centuries after the date of Augustus Cæsar. It was not until war was waged amongst themselves that the Sabaian name and nation finally disappeared from Arabia and Africa.

One of the most powerful branches of the Sabaians were the Homeritai of the classical writers, the Himyarites or Mahri of the vernacular. The inscriptions known amongst learned men as Himyaritic, which are found on the ruins of the southern coasts, as already mentioned, were the work of these people. Their eponymus was Himyar, the son of Abd-Shams-Saba, the third in descent from Joktan. They seem to have occupied that part of Arabia Felix assigned by Canon Rawlinson to the descendants of Havilah, whose name he was unable to trace to any of the tribes. Perhaps the Himyarites were his descendants; but this is merely a conjecture. The result of the intertribal contests was that Hareth, a descendant of Himyar, obtained the Sabaian throne, and gradually the place of the Sabaians in history was taken by the Himyarites, under their classical form, Homeritai. The Homeritai maintained an independent dominion until about 500 A.D., and there is no reason to believe that internal troubles were renewed, for prosperity and national wealth returned. But the long history of the Sabaians, under their several names of Cushites, Ethiopians, Chaldæans, Akkadians, and Babylonians, in Shinar, and Sabaians and Homeritai in Arabia, was drawing to a close, and again the fatal blow came from a related people. Gibbon ("Decline and Fall"), in his beautiful language, will furnish the account, though of necessity much abbreviated. "The independence of the Homerites, who page 59 reigned in the rich and happy Arabia, was first violated by an Ethiopian conqueror; he drew his hereditary claim from the queen of Sheba, and his ambition was sanctified by religious zeal.^* . . . The Negus passed the Red Sea with a fleet and army (533 A.D.), and extinguished a race of princes who had ruled above two thousand years the sequestered region of myrrh and frankincense." Ultimately the Ethiopians were attacked by Chosroes, the Persian conqueror, overthrown, and were finally expelled from the continent of Asia. After the invasion of the Persians and the subjugation of the Homeritai, this once powerful sept doubtless followed the other portions of the nation who had previously emigrated. The date of this final movement may be placed at 550 to 600 A.D. There are still existing representatives of the Homeritai in Arabia; viz., the people whose name is written "Mahri;" possibly "Maori" might more accurately represent the sound. They inhabit the southern coasts of Arabia, and a glossary or dictionary of their language has been published. It is stated to have marked affinities to the Galla dialect of Africa.^†

Having now dealt with the historical and documentary evidence, it will be well to examine the traditions of the migration known to the descendants of the people themselves. A rapid decline took place in the civilization and social and mental culture of the Sabaians. Arriving in the islands in detachments, separating themselves into distinct communities, settling wherever fancy led them, they necessarily became segregated, and speedily underwent degradation in all the arts, habits, and knowledge which are included in the word civilization. Then would commence the perpetuation of the family records and the public history by tradition or verbal transmission from one generation to another. The prodigious power of the memory of the uneducated man or the human being without the knowledge of the art of writing can scarcely be appreciated by a person who has had no opportunity of

^* The Abyssinians were Christians.

^† endeavoured to obtain a copy of this work from England, but unsuccessfully. Only seventy copies were printed, I was informed, and they are mostly in public libraries and museums. "O fortunatos! nimium sua si bono norint," who live in places where books can be got or referred to.

page 60 observing it. From long experience in Maori land courts, I can personally testify that the capacity of the mind to retain, and recount when necessary, genealogies extending back for twenty generations, and comprising all the descendants and alliances down to the present day, is perfectly marvellous. I have received in evidence, at intervals of months and years, family pedigrees containing many hundred names, and on minutely comparing them I have found absolute agreement, except that one relator would differ from another relator in the sex of a person who lived perhaps ten or fifteen generations ago.

Taylor, writing on the Law of Evidence, places a high value on traditions, even in courts, and indeed it is now the recognised practice of European scholars, who inquire into prehistoric matters, to accept them, and examine them with the minutest care. The office of priest or tohunga, who was principally charged with the duty of handing down the national and family histories, was always, amongst the Polynesians, an office of high dignity, and he was protected by a perpetual tapu of the most rigorous character. So venerated and feared was the tohunga, that he was often liable to die of starvation, from the difficulty of going through such a vulgar and unsanctified process as eating; for everything he touched became tapu. When he drank, he had to make a funnel of his hands, into which another person poured water. Had the calabash touched his lips, it must have been destroyed. In some of the islands the preservation of the traditions is cared for by the authorities as a matter of state. Dr. Pickering, member of the United States exploring expedition, has noticed this circumstance: "In the midst of the fictions of their songs (Hawai) their real history is embodied, if I am rightly informed, as far back as the colonization of the group. The preservation of this literature constituted a distinct department of the government, and a class of persons were regularly appointed as depositaries."

As the narrator of the Maui legend said to Sir G. Grey, the people of New Zealand, and in truth of all the Polynesian islands, preserve closely the traditions of old times, as a thing to be taught to the generations that come after them. They are repeated in page 61 the prayers, and whenever the deeds of the ancestors from whom each family is descended are related, and upon other similar occasions.

The Hawaiian people have a celebrated tradition, which has been carefully taken down by the indefatigable investigator, Mr. Fernander. The language differs somewhat from Maori, but not sufficiently to require lengthened notice now, the change being almost confined to the substitution of one consonant for another; thus, k in place of t.

There was a chief of high rank, called Hawaiiloa.^* He had another name, Kekowa-o-Hawaii. He was born in a place called Ke-aina kai Melemele a Kane, called also Hawai kua ole Kaioo, or Hawaii of the verdant hills and dotted sea. This land was situated within a larger district, known by the name of Kapakapa-ua-a-kane. This again was a subdivision of a larger country, called Kahiki-hu. He was born on a place towards the east. To the south of this land was a large country, called Ku-i-lalo, or Hunua ku-i-lalo, renowned for its warlike and savage people, while to the west was another large land or continent, called Kahiki-moe. To the north was a country called Ulunui and Melemele. This chief was a great navigator, and on one of his maritime expeditions, by sailing in the direction of the star Jao (Jupiter when morning star), and by the Pleiades, i.e., to the eastward, he discovered land. Delighted with the country, he returned to his native land after his wife and family, and having performed the same eastern voyage in the direction of the morning star and the Pleiades, crossing the ocean, which is called by the diverse names of Kai-olo-oka-ia (the sea where fish run), Ka moana kai maokioki a kane (the sacred many-coloured sea), and also Moana kai popolo (the dark green sea), he arrived a second time at the islands, and he and his family were the first human inhabitants. Hawaii-loa is repre sented as having made several voyages afterwards, between Kapa-kapa-ua and Hawaii, as well as other voyages to the extreme south (to Madagascar, doubtless), and also to some western land where dwelt a people with peculiar eyes, Rahui maka lilio (people with

^* His name appears in the Hawaiian genealogies.

page 62 upturned eyes, as Fernander translates lilio). Travelling thence northwards and westwards, he came to a country called Kua hewa-hewa, a very large country. Returning from this country, he is said to have brought with him two white men, Keokeo kane, whom he married, on his return, to Hawaiian women.

Now we must endeavour to discover where the places named are. In the first place the name of their eponymic ancestor is remarkable. Hawaii-i-loa, or Hawaii from afar, is evidently a personification of a people, and the idea becomes a certainty from his other name, Ke Kowa o Hawai, or, as the Maori dialect would term it, Te koha o Hawai. Koha means honour, dignity, or sovereignty. Te koha o Hawai is therefore the sovereignty or nationality of Hawai, or Sabai, as it would be termed before the S was dropped from the language, and the name represents the people of Sabai, though doubtless the exploits of an individual have become mixed up in the general thread of the tradition. The place of residence of the hero or people was Ke aina (te whenua) kai melemele a Kane. The Maori Tane was and is one of their principal gods, and "a Kane" simply means sacred or holy. Melemele means yellow or coloured, as Fernandez tells us, though I know of no corresponding word in Maori. The place therefore is the sacred land of the coloured sea. The Erythræan Sea or Red Sea of Herodotus was the Persian Gulf of modern times, and included the adjoining open sea at the south. The place was therefore in the neighbourhood of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf. It was situated within a larger district called Kapakapa ua a Kane. And here Fernander truly says: "From analogy and the general idiomacy of the Polynesian language, it becomes highly probable Kapakapaua^* is an old intensitive duplicated form of the Cushite Saba—K taking the place of S." A Kane is a term again repeated, referring to the god Tane, and the phrase would mean "the sacred Saba"—the reduplication indicating that there were, situated contiguously, several places bearing that name.^†

Kapakapa-ua was a subdivision of a larger country called Kahi-ki-ku. Ku means eastern. Kahi is evidently the nearest approach that the absence of the letter S permits to be made to the word Kassi. The Kassi or Kusu in Akkadian were the Kissians or Cossæans of the classical writers, the Cushites of the Bible. Kahiki means the land of the Kussi or Cushites—ki and ka meaning land in the Chaldæan tablets according to Rawlinson. Kahiki-ku therefore means the Eastern Kassia or Cushite land. This clearly points to Arabia. To the south of Te Koha's birthplace was a country called Hunua (whenua) ku-i-lalo, renowned for its warlike inhabitants. This appears to mean the eastern land to the south. The eastern part of Africa to the south of Arabia was so celebrated for the savage character of its people that it got the name from the classical writers of Barbarica. To the west was another large continent called Kahikimoe. Moe means west where the sun goes to sleep. Kahikimoe therefore is the Western Kassia or Cushite land, and clearly points to Africa where the Cushites were in abundance. To the north was Ulunui, the ancient settlements of the people Urunu, or Ur of the Chaldees. Among the Hawaiian words signifying north, Fernander tells us, are Ulunui and Melemele, and uru still means north in New Zealand legends, though elsewhere the word is obsolete. Ulunui we know, and Melemele may, besides the signification of coloured, which Fernandez has assigned to it, have been the name of a town or place now lost.^* In any case the land of Melemele and the sea of Melemele are certainly connected with each other.

The starting point of our hero, or rather of the people of Sabai whom he personifies, is therefore certainly fixed in the southern part of Arabia, and sailing over the sea whose poetical names need not be repeated, but which could have been none other than the Indian Ocean, the islands which he arrived at must have been Sumatra and the adjoining islands called by Strabo Sabadeibai. He is said to have called one after his own name, Hawai, and another after his son Maui.

According to the legend the islands were, at the arrival of Hawai, uninhabited, indicating a very early date for the voyage. It must, however, have been subsequent to the migration from Akkadia, for the ancient abodes of the people are referred to as situated to the north of the land in which they were then living, and from which Hawai started. He is represented as having made several voyages afterwards between Kapakapa (Sabai) and Hawai, as he had named the new country, referring doubtless to the streams of colonists who hastened to avail themselves of the discovery.

The hero made a journey also to some western land, where dwelt a people with peculiar eyes—mata lilio. Mr. Fernander devotes much labour to discover the people with "upturned eyes," as he translates the word, but with no satisfactory result. There is no word in Maori that I know of exactly corresponding to "lilio" of the Hawaian, but I would find its Maori representative in "ori," which means "a prey to disease." "The people with page 65 diseased eyes" might well define the Egyptians, for the papyrus writings contain numerous medical prescriptions for eye diseases, suggesting that the eyes of the people of Egypt were as subject to disease in ancient times as they are now. If that is so, the large country to the north-west would be Marmarica, inhabited by a fair people called on the Egyptian monuments Thuheni (the Naphtuhim of Scripture), and by the Greeks Marmaridai.

Fernander says, with reference to this legend, "Historically speaking, I am inclined to think that the legend of Hawaii-loa represents the adventures and achievements of several persons, which, as ages elapsed, and the individuality of the actor retired into the background, while the echo of his deeds was caught up by succcessive generations, were finally ascribed to some central figure, who thus became the traditional hero, not only of his own time, but also of times anterior as well as posterior to his actual existence. While the one set of legends shows the voyages and intercourse of the early Cushites with the countries and archipels about the Indian Ocean, the other set of legends shows the inter-course and voyages of the earlier Polynesians between the groups of the Pacific. But to find the former set of legends in the possession of the latter race of people argues a connection, political and social, if not ethnic, and to some extent probably both, so intimate, yet so far antecedent, that the latter had really come to identify themselves with the former, and to appropriate to their own proper heroes the legends brought them by the others. In much later times the process was repeated, when the Hawaiian groups were overrun by adventurers from the south Polynesian islands, who incorporated their own legends and their own version of common legends on the Hawaiian folklore, and interpolated their own heroes on the Hawaiian genealogies."

With all respect to this learned inquirer. I venture to think that the explanation of the adaptation of the legend to the later removal of the people from the Malay archipelago to the Polynesian islands is much more simple. The original legend related, of course, to the Saba, Hawa or Hawai, which was constituted on the first removal of the Sabaian people from southern Arabia to the page 66 islands of the Indian Ocean, and as long as the race sojourned there, that was doubtless the application. When they again moved on, they carried their traditions with them, but the signification in the popular mind, after the lapse of ages, became altered; that is to say, the tradition was made to apply to the only Hawai then known to the people, that is, to the one at which they were then living. This view seems to me to become a mathematical certainty, from the fact that each group of islands in the Pacific applies the legend to their own Savai or Hawai—a clear proof, to my mind, that they all have reference back to a Hawai of ancient date, which was common to all the groups. This could be none other than the Hawai of the Indian Ocean.

This view receives confirmation from a statement in the legend which I am inclined to regard as an interpolation of later date than the arrival of the Hawaiians in the Pacific. Hawai-i-loa is reported to have named the newly discovered land Hawai, and an island adjoining he called after Maui his son. That the celebrated hero and demi-god Maui was the son of a person of the name of Hawai is confirmed by no other song or legend of the Polynesians, nor can I find that any of the Sunda or Molucca islands was ever called Maui. But one of the principal islands of the Hawaiian group bears the name of Maui, and it seems very probable that the tale of the first great migration into the islands of the Indian Ocean was extended, so as to include that island in the legendary account at a subsequent time, when the popular mind had perceived its applicability to the Hawaiian group, or in truth to any group, and the pride of the people demanded that an eponymic hero should be found for the second island; so they furnished Hawai with a son of that name, and called the island by his name.

The tribe of the Himyarites, or Mahri, did not accompany the first emigrants. When the Sabaian name had disappeared from Arabia, as the name of the people to the outside world, Homeritai took its place; and it cannot be that any important section of that tribe left the country until the time of the invasions of the Ethiopians and Persians, before mentioned; for up to that date the Homeritai had continued to "reign in rich and happy Arabia," as Gibbon says.

One of the most popular of the legends of the New Zealanders relates to the exploits of Maui,^* whose name appears as part of many names of places in the country, and as furnishing its vernacular designation to the Northern Island. This legend has been taken down by many European writers. The most elegant of all the accounts, and perhaps the most ungarnished, is that of the late Judge Maning, published posthumously in a small pamphlet, containing also the Maori tradition of the Creation.

Maui, the son of Taranga and Makea-Tutara, was born on the shores of the sea. He is represented as of a mischievous and turbulent disposition, incurring the enmity and dislike of his own family. Being abused by them for his laziness, he started with his brothers on a fishing expedition. When the party arrived at the usual fishing place Maui persuaded them to go still further and further, till at last they got to the most distant anchorages ever reached. Here the party prepared to anchor, but Maui said to them, "It is not worth while to fish here; let us go out into the currents of the great ocean, out of sight of land." So on they went, and at last the land disappeared. Maui's brothers murmured, but they sailed on and on. At last Maui let down his hook. "Maui hauls with all his force, and up comes a world! Now the full strain he feels; his god-like strength is matched, no nearer comes the hook. The turbid ocean boils; the mountain tops are seen, and many a whirling vortex roars. Now madness seizes Maui; fierce he strains and shouts his lifting song:

Wherefore, wherefore, O Tongonui!
Cling you to the ocean depths?
Resisting still the force of Ranga-whenua.
Diving in the troubled sea,
Diving! lifting! ooi!
The force of Ranga-whenua prevails.

Ha! the fish of Maui rises from the waters—a land fish—a spacious country—Papa-tu-a-nuku!" According to some versions of the legend, Maui, having hauled up this new land, set out on a

^* This legend, according to Judge Mailing's version, with his remarks and notes, is printed in full in the Appendix.

page 68 return expedition to discover his father and mother, whom he found. Afterwards he appears to have rejoined his brothers. "In those days the sun was much hotter than now, and the days were very short; for the sun remained not long in the heavens, his pace was so quick before he set; and men could not labour to procure food by reason of the heat and the shortness of the days; but had the days been longer the world would have been burnt up, so great was the heat of the sun. So Maui said to his brethren, 'Let us assail the sun and take from him some of his heat, and bind him, and retard his motion, that the days may be longer, and men have more time to cultivate the earth.' . . . Maui and his brothers made a great number of ropes—twisted ropes, knotted ropes, plaited ropes, all kinds of ropes—and started for the rising of the sun. Long they journeyed, till at last they arrived at the place where the rising sun comes forth. The attack is made, and the sun complains, 'Wherefore assault you me, O man! you who dare assault even The Great-child-Ra?' Then was first heard the sun's true name—Tama-nui-te-Ra. The fierce assault continues; at last they release the sun; wounded and shorn of half his fire, slowly he takes his way, and it is long before he reaches his setting place. So the days have since been longer and more cool, and men can labour in comfort."

The first part of this legend clearly refers to an early maritime expedition, originating apparently from intestine quarrels. The discovery of land is poetically described by the demi-god's hauling it out of the sea. The Maoris believe that the legend accounts for the creation of New Zealand, and Maui's name is preserved in their name for the North Island; but it appears to me certainly to refer to the earlier migration to the islands of the Indian Ocean. The description of the boiling of the sea and the appearance of new land arising from the water in the midst of the catastrophe is an ornament which has accreted itself on to the original story, after the terrible convulsions of Nature had been witnessed which are so frequent in the Sundas and Moluccas, and which may have caused the rising of a new island from the sea. Moreover, the demi-god Maui is not confined to New Zealand mythology, but is page 69 a legendary hero of all the Polynesian groups, absolutely proving, as in the case of Hawai, that his exploits occurred before the arrival of the tribes in the Pacific, and must be referred back to an antecedent epoch in their history which was common to all. The Maori name of the North Island of New Zealand is "te ahi a Maui," "the fire of Maui," and preserves the tradition of the volcanic disturbances, the memory of which appears in a poetical form in the legend; although the discovery of land and the subsequent eruptions and raisings of islands are, as might be expected, somewhat confused therein—affording another proof that the land "fished up" was not New Zealand, but must be referred to a region where such phenomena were common.

The traditions of the several expeditions into New Zealand are very well preserved, supplying the names of the vessels and many of the names of the immigrants, and even of the tools with which the vessels were built. This story of Maui has no relation to any of these traditions, nor is his name mentioned in them, but it has no element of unfitness when applied to the discovery of the Indian islands. The great demi-god's name would not have been omitted in the New Zealand traditions of migration to the country if he had taken any part in the expeditions.

The other part of the legend, characterised by much poetic vigour, relates to the abandonment of the hot equatorial regions for a colder country, and is applicable to the second removal of the people. Maui and his companions went constantly on towards the East, and after a long journey stripped the sun of his direful power, and by making him move more slowly prolonged the days. The Malay islands are situated under the equator and New Zealand in the temperate zone, and the course from the one to the other would be south-east. Of course the days are considerably longer in summer in New Zealand than under the Line, and the temperature is very mild and pleasant at all times, so that "men can labour in comfort." These meteorological changes are embodied in the legend, and are attributed to the heroic operations of the demi-god Maui. Whether the whole story is a poetic fiction embodying the long history of the migrations of the people from page 70 Arabia, or whether there ever was a heroic personage of the name of Maui who was concerned in the early voyages to the islands of the Indian Ocean, cannot now be determined. I confess that my mind inclines to the latter supposition, for it is difficult otherwise to understand how the folk-lore of each group of islands in the Pacific preserves the memory of his exploits. And the probability of actual foundation of fact for the stories is increased by the retention of the history of heroic deeds of Maui by the people of some groups the memory of which has been lost in others.

Judge Maning is of opinion that the Maui legend "was told certainly a thousand years before the first Maori saw these islands." I agree with him as to the first part of the story, but not as to the second, which to my mind clearly has reference to the migration to New Zealand, and must have been a later addition to a very ancient story, dramatised after the people had settled here.