Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/171

Rh it was due to their pressure on the Polynesians that they began about this time to move eastward. It is abundantly clear, from physiology and language, that there was a time when the Melanesians and Polynesians mixed in marriage. I suppose this would occur by the conquest of the latter to a certain small extent, and the capture of Polynesian women, for I think the racial dislike of the Polynesians for black people would prevent a large number of free connections. The result of this mixture is the present Fiji people, which is most noticeable in the Eastern or Lau Group of the Fiji Archipelago, where, it is said, the people are lighter in colour, and where the Polynesians must have been in strongest numbers.