Note 459 — Chapter VI

That is, to Easter Island, which appears to be its furthest boundary (Prichard's Phys. Hist. vol. v. p. 6); and of which there is a good account in Beechey's Voyage to the Pacific, vol. i. pp. 43–58, and a notice in Jour. of Geog. Society, vol. i. p. 195. The language of Easter Island has been long known to be Malayo-Polynesian; for it was understood by a native of the Society Islands, who accompanied Cook (Cook's Voyages, vol. iii. pp. 294, 308; and Prichard, vol. v. p. 147: compare Marsden's History of Sumatra, p. 164). Ethnologists have not usually paid sufficient honour to this great navigator, who was the first to remark the similarity between the different languages in Polynesia proper. Cook's Voyages, vol. ii. pp. 60, 61, vol. iii. pp. 230, 280, 290, vol. iv. p. 305, vol. vi. p. 230, vol. vii. p. 115. As to Madagascar being the western limit of this vast race of people, see Asiatic Researches, vol. iv. p. 222; Reports on Ethnology by Brit. Assoc. for 1847, pp. 154, 216, 250; and Ellis's Hist. of Madagascar, vol. i. p. 133.