(3) That about the fifth century a.d. Hawaii was settled by Polynesians who reached the group by a chain of islands that have since disappeared, and were isolated there for some six centuries. (4) That in the eleventh century began a period of unrest, during which there was frequent intercourse between the Marquesas, Society, Samoan and Hawaiian peoples for five or six generations. I quote the fourth conclusion because I believe that it has a bearing upon the Polynesian strain of blood which we find in the eastern portion of the Fiji islands. Now, Fornander's route for the Polynesians rests upon the assumption that they sojourned for more than three centuries in Fiji after the country had been settled by Melanesians, and that they were driven out bag and baggage by the Melanesians with whom they left behind nothing but their mythology and customs. If this is true the first arrival of the Melanesians in Fiji is set back beyond our era; if it is false, Fornander's theory falls to the ground. He bases his belief not upon any indisputable references to Fiji in Polynesian traditions, but upon "the number of Polynesian names by which these islands and places in them are called, even now, by their Papuan inhabitants,"[7] and upon the Polynesian words and folklore to be found incorporated in the language and Mythology of Fiji.[8] Upon this he estimates the Polynesian sojourn in Fiji to be thirteen generations, and says that these alleged facts "argue a permanence of residence that cannot well be disputed."[9] And so they would if they were true, but, unhappily for his argument, they are not. He conjectures the Polynesian's landing-place to have been in the western portion of Vitilevu, where, with one exception, the local and tribal names are pure Melanesian, and this exception--the tribe of _Noikoro_ in the centre of the inland district--has a well-preserved tradition of emigration from the south-eastern coast of the island. Moreover, the dialects of Western Vitilevu are Melanesian, with less infusion of Polynesian words than any of the languages lying eastward of them. And lastly, it is impossible to believe that so momentous an event as the struggle between the two races, and the final expulsion of one of them, would have left no trace behind it in the traditions of the victors, when so insignificant an event as the arrival of two castaways, the missionaries of the Polynesian cult of the _Malae_ is recorded in detail. Had Fornander had the talent for sifting evidence he held the clue in his hand when he wrote, "The large infusion of vocables in the Fijian language, and the mixture of the two races, _especially in the south-eastern part of the group_, indicate a protracted _séjour_, and an intercourse of peace as well as of war," for it is in this very fact that the Polynesian infusion is strongest on the eastern margin of the group, and wanes with every mile we travel westward, until it is lost