their simple diet, and the absence of all stimulants, their early hours of retiring to rest, and rising in the morning with or before the break of day, their freedom from irritating or distressing cares, and sedentary habits, which so often, in artificial or civilized society, destroy health, appear favourable to the longevity of this portion of the inhabitants, and present a striking contrast to the dissipated and licentious habits of the Areois dancers, and votaries of dissipation and pleasure.

CHAPTER V.

Comparative numbers of the inhabitants-Indications and causes of depopu lation-Beneficial tendency of Christianity-Origin of the inhabitants of the South Sea islands-Traditions-Legends of Taaroa and Hina-Resemblance to Jewish history-Coincidences in language, mythology, &c. with the language, &c. of the Hindoos and Malays, Madagasse, and South Americans-Probable source of population-Difficulty of reaching the islands from the west-Account of the different native voyages-Geographical extent over which the Polynesian race and language prevail.

It is impossible for any one who has visited these islands, or traversed any one of the districts, to entertain the slightest doubt that the number of inhabitants in the South Sea islands was formerly much greater than at present. What their number, in any remote period of their history, may have been, it is not easy to ascertain: Captain Cook estimated those residing in Tahiti at 200,000. The grounds, however, on which he formed his conclusions were certainly fallacious. The population was at all times so fugitive and uncertain, as to the proportion it bore to any section of geographical surface, that no correct inference as to the amount of the whole could be drawn from the numbers seen in one part. Captain Wilson's calculation, in 1797, made the population of Tahiti only about 16,000; and, not many years afterward, the missionaries declared it as their opinion, that this island did not contain more than 8,000 souls; and I cannot think that, within the last thirty years, it has ever contained fewer inhabitants.

The present number of natives is about 10,000; that of Eimeo and Tetuaroa probably 2,000. The Leeward

The Islands perhaps contain nearly an equal number. Austral Islands have about 5,000 inhabitants; 4,000 of whom reside in the islands of Rapa and Raivavai.* Rarotogna, or Rarotoa, has a population of nearly 7,000; and the whole of the Harvey Islands contain not less than ten or eleven thousand. Connected with these may be considered the Paumotu, or Pearl Islands, of whose population it is difficult to form any correct estimate, as there are no means of ascertaining their numbers, excepting from the reports of the natives, and the observations of masters of vessels, who generally make a very short stay among them. Anaa, or Prince of Wales's Island, is said to be inhabited by several thousands, and as the islands are numerous, though small, it is to be presumed that their population does not amount to less than ten thousand. From these statements it will appear, that the population of the Georgian and Society Islands, together with the adjacent clusters, with which the natives maintain constant intercourse, and to which Christianity has been conveyed by native or European teachers, comprises between forty-eight and fifty thousand persons. In this number, the Marquesas, to which native teachers have gone, and which one of the missionaries has recently visited, are not included. Their population is probably about thirty or forty thousand.

With respect to the Society and neighbouring islands, although no ancient monuments are found indicating that they were ever inhabited by a race much farther advanced in civilization than those found on their shores by Wallis, Cook, and Bougainville; yet that race has evidently, at no very remote period, been much more numerous than it was when discovered by Europeans. In the bottom of every valley, even to the recesses in the mountains, on the sides of the inferior hills, and on the brows of almost every promontory, in each of the islands, monuments of former generations are still met with in great abundance. Stone pavements of their dwellings and court-yards, foundations of houses, and ruins of family temples are numerous. Occasionally they are found in exposed situations, but generally amid thickets of brushwood or groves of trees, some of which

* Since this estimate was first published, a severe epidemic has swept through these two latter islands, and considerably diminished the population.

are of the largest growth. All these relics are of the same kind as those observed among the natives at the time of their discovery, evidently proving that they belong to the same race, though to a more populous era of their history. The stone tools occasionally found near these vestiges of antiquity demonstrate the same lamentable fact.

The present generations, deeply sensible of the depopulation that has taken place even within the recollection of those most advanced in years, have felt acutely in prospect of the annihilation that appeared inevitable. Their priests formerly denounced the destruction of the nation, as the greatest punishment the gods could inflict, and the following was one of the predictions: E tupu te fau, e toro te farero, e mou te taata: "The fau (hibiscus) shall grow, the farero (coral) shall spread or stretch out its branches, but man shall cease." The fau is one of the most spreading trees, and is of quickest growth; it soon overruns uncultivated lands; while the branching coral, farero, is perhaps more rapid in its formation than any of the corallines that close up the openings in the reefs, and, wherever it is shallow, rises to the water's surface, so as to prevent the passage of the canoe, and destroy the resort of the fish. This was denounced as the punishment that would follow disobedience to the injunctions or requisitions of the priest, delivered in the name and under the authority of the gods. Tati, however, remarked to Mr. Davies, that it was the observing, not the neglecting, of the directions of the priest that had nearly produced its actual accomplishment.

At the time when the nation renounced idolatry, the population was so much reduced, that many of the more observant natives thought the denunciation of the prophet was about to be literally fulfilled. Tati, the chief of Papara, talking with Mr. Davies on this subject, in 1815, said, with great emphasis, that "If God had not sent his Word at the time he did, wars, infant-murder, human sacrifices, &c. would have made an end of the small remnant of the nation." A similar declaration was pathetically made by Pomare soon after, when some visiters from England, I think the deputation from the Missionary Society, waited upon him at his residence. He addressed them to the following effect: "You have come to see us under circunstances very

different from those under which your countrymen formerly visited our ancestors. They came in the era of men, when the islands were inhabited, but you are come to behold just the remnant of the people." I have often heard the chiefs speak of themselves and of the natives as only a small toea, remainder, left after the extermination of Satani, or the evil spirit; comparing themselves to a firebrand unconsumed among the mouldering embers of a recent conflagration. These figures, and others equally affecting and impressive, were but too appropriate, as emblems of the actual state to which they were reduced. Under the depopulating influence of vicious habits-the dreadful devastation of diseases that followed, and the early destruction of health-the prevalence of infanticide-the frequency of war-the barbarous principles upon which it was prosecuted, and the increase of human sacrifices, it does not appear possible that they could have existed as a nation for many generations longer.

An inquiry naturally presents itself in connexion with this subject, viz.: To what cause is this recent change in the circumstances of the people to be attributed? It is self-evident, that if these habits had always prevailed among the Tahitians, they must long since have been annihilated. Society must, at some time, have been more favourable, not only to the preservation, but to the increase of population, or the inhabitants could never have been so numerous as they undoubtedly were a century or a century and a half ago. There is no question that depopulation had taken place to a considerable extent prior to their discovery by Captain Wallis, and it is not easy to discover the causes which first led to it. Infanticide and human sacrifices, together with their wars, appear to have occasioned the diminution of the inhabitants before the period alluded to. Whether wars were more frequent immediately preceding their discovery than they had been in earlier ages, we have not the means of knowing, nor have we been able to ascertain, with any great accuracy, how long the Areoi society had existed, or childmurder was practised. There is reason to believe that infanticide is not of recent origin, and the antiquity of the Areoi fraternity, according to tradition, is equal to that of the first inhabitants.

Human sacrifices, we are informed by the natives, are

CAUSES OF DEPOPULATION.

93

comparatively of modern institution: they were not admitted until a few generations antecedent to the discovery of the islands. They were first offered at Raiatea, in the national marae at Opoa, having been demanded by the priest in the name of the god, who had communicated the requisition to his servant in a dream. Human sacrifices were presented at Raiata and the Leeward Islands for some time before they were introduced among the offerings to the deities of Tahiti; but soon after they began to be employed, they were offered with great frequency, and in appalling numbers;—but of this an account will hereafter be given.

The depopulation that has taken place during the last two or three generations, viz. since their discovery, may be easily accounted for. In addition to a disease, which, as a desolating scourge, spread, unpalliated and unrestrained, its unsightly and fatal influence among the people, two others are reported to have been carried thither-one by the crew of Vancouver in 1790; and the other by means of the Britannia, an English whaler, in 1807. Both these disorders spread through the islands; the former almost as fatal as the plague, the latter affecting nearly every individual throughout all the islands. The maladies originally prevailing among them appear, compared with those by which they are now afficted, to have been few in number and mild in character.

Next to these diseases, the introduction of firearms,although their use in war has not perhaps rendered their engagements more cruel and murderous than when they fought hand to hand with club and spear,-has most undoubtedly cherished, in those who possessed them, a desire for war, as a means of enlarging their territory and augmenting their power. Pomare's dominion

would never have been so extensive and so absolute, but for the aid he derived, in the early part of his reign, from the mutineers of the Bounty, who attended him to battle with arms which they had previously learned to use with an effect which his opponents could not resist. Subsequently, the hostile chieftains, having procured firearms, and succeeding in attaching to their interest European deserters from their ships, considered themselves, if not invincible, at least equal to their enemies, and sought every opportunity for engaging in the horrid work of accelerating the depopulation of their country.