Answer:
The division between accidental and deliberate voyages in the table is one of rough convenience only. A more realistic division would include a whole scale of drift voyages, vaguely deliberate voyages, off-course voyages on which the course has been recovered, accidental voyages which have ended in a successful return, etc. For this reason such details as are known of the voyages are supplied in the table so that the reader may judge for himself their category. How, for example, would he classify Nos. 37, 42, 43, and what relevance do they hold for his theory of the Polynesian dispersal? Are we to take the evidence of temporary Polynesian visits to the uninhabited islands (Nos. 135-147) as sad endings to one-way accidental voyages, when in Nos. 2, 9, 18, 30, 54, 99, we have examples of just such accidental arrivals at uninhabited islands, followed by a determined effort to return or push on?
The following table is as exhaustive as a reading of the better known works on the Pacific would allow: undoubtedly there are many more instances known by personal experience or to be found in the manuscript and newspaper sources of Pacific history. The voyages in the Polynesian area have been supplemented by some on the fringes of Western Polynesia and Melanesia from information received from Mr. Parsonson. Capt. Brett Hilder has also supplied some west-east voyages (Nos. 148-152) from his own experience. They testify partly to the invisible force of the equatorial counter-current and partly to the influence of unexpected westerlies. They may add point to the suggestion made by both Mr. Parsonson and Mr. Dening that while accidental voyages to the east have been frequent enough in the far west and equatorial zones to have occasioned the initial Polynesian dispersal, the dominant stream of accidental voyages in the Polynesian area proper has been to the west.
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