POLYNESIA

Polynesia. A NAME given by several early writers on geography, but first, we believe, by De Barros, to the numerous islands scattered over the Pacific Ocean, or, as it was usually called, the Great South Sea. It is the name which is now applied by most modern geographers to the sixth great division of the earth's surface; a division which will probably appear, on examination, less arbitrary than some others; for whether we consider it in a political, physical, or moral point of view, the separation from America on the one hand, and from Australasia and the Asiatic Islands on the other, is marked by strong and distinct features. A considerable portion of the two last, for instance, have, ages ago, been invaded and taken possession of by foreigners, and many of them more recently been colonized by Europeans. No colonies have yet been planted in Polynesia, with the exception of that on one of the Ladrones Islands by Spain; numbers of its islands have never yet been visited; and the rest only occasionally by passing navigators, or a few of the most inviting by some missionaries, with the sole object of the conversion of the natives to Christianity. The inhabitants have no political connection with any of the other divisions of the earth, and little or none exists between any two of its groups or separate islands, each being governed by its own chiefs, and confining its friendships or hostilities to some neighbouring group or island.

Physically considered. Physically considered, the line of separation is almost as distinct as their political seclusion. If a line be drawn in a south-easterly direction, along the eastern extremity of the Philippine Islands, Mindanao, Papua or New Guinea, New Ireland, and Solomon's Archipelago, and from thence continued southerly along the eastern shores of the New Hebrides and New Zealand, this line will mark with sufficient precision the separation of the Asiatic Islands (mostly to the northward of the equator) and Australasia (to the southward of the equator) from Polynesia. Besides, the geological structure of the islands which constitute the last mentioned divisions are, generally speaking, essentially different; consisting chiefly of lofty mountains, of primary or secondary formation, partaking of the same structure as those on the continent of Asia, with which some of them, indeed, may probably have once been connected, their rugged sides presenting, as it were, a broken barrier to the Great Pacific; whereas Polynesia exhibits a series of low, flat islands, scarcely rising above the level of the sea, which, with the exception of a few of the larger groups of volcanic formation, are the labours of minute sea-animals, and are usually distinguished by the name of Coral Islands or Reefs.

Morally considered. In a moral point of view, the distinctive character of the Polynesians is as strongly marked as the physical structure of the islands which they inhabit. In the Eastern Archipelago, or the Asiatic Islands, and in Australasia, two distinct races of men have been

traced, the black and the brown. In the Archipelago, and more particularly in the Philippine Islands, a few individual families of the Negro race were discovered by the early European visitors; in New Guinea and the Papuan Islands, the whole population appears to consist of this race. They differ in some respects from the negroes of the western coast of Africa; resembling rather those which are found on the eastern coast, particularly in the hair, which is strongly twisted into small tufts, and very different from that of the negro of Guinea.

None of these negroes have been discovered on any of the islands of Polynesia, all the inhabitants being of the brown race, and evidently derived from the same common stock to which the Tartars, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Malays, owe their origin. In this opinion Sir William Jones, Dr Buchanan, Dr Hunter, Mr Marsden, and Sir Stamford Raffles, unanimously concur. This race, modified, of course, by the circumstances of climate, occupations, and habits, may thus be described: Their persons short, squat, and robust; their lower limbs large and heavy; their arms fleshy; hands and feet small; face somewhat of a lozenge shape, the forehead and chin rather sharpened, but broad across the cheekbones, which are high, and the cheeks hollow; the eyes black, small, narrow, and placed obliquely in the head, the external angle being the highest; nose broad, but not flat, and nostrils open and circular; mouth rather wide; hair harsh, lank, and quite black.

Dispersed as the Polynesians are, and rarely and purely accidental as any communication between distant islands must be, it is perfectly certain that the different dialects spoken, from the shores of India and Africa to those of America, are the derivatives of one common language, which, according to Marsden, still forms the primitive portion of the Malay language, mixed, as it now is, with Sanscrit and Arabic. "The Malayan," says this learned and accurate writer, "is a branch or dialect of the widely extended language prevailing throughout the islands of the archipelago to which it gives name, and those of the South Sea, comprehending between Madagascar on the one side, and Easter Island on the other, both inclusive, the space of full two hundred degrees of longitude. This consideration alone is sufficient to give it claim to the highest degree of antiquity, and to originality, as far as that term can be applied."

Not less remarkable is the general accordance of the Polynesians in manners, superstitions, and religious observances. The conversion of the Malays of the archipelago to Mahometanism has obliterated nearly their ancient faith, but enough still remains on some of the Asiatic Islands, and still more on the Asiatic Continent, to trace the source from whence the Polynesians have derived their notions and practices on matters of this kind.

Polynesia. These preliminary observations on the physical form, features, language, and religion of the Polynesians, are made with a view to assert their common origin, and may be taken as a general description of the natives of the various groups of islands which are scattered over the surface of the vast Pacific Ocean. These groups are exceedingly different in their extent, both as to number and size as well as in their composition. Sometimes single islands are met with, surrounded by rocky reefs. These islands and reefs are dispersed, as already observed, over the whole of the Pacific Ocean, but chiefly between the thirtieth degree of northern and the thirtieth degree of southern latitude. The following classification will probably be found to embrace the greater part of those islands which are comprehended under the geographical division, Polynesia:

General View of the Islands.

Classification of the Islands.

1. 1. The Marian or Ladrone Islands.
2. 2. The Carolinas, including the Pellow Islands.
3. 3. The Sandwich Islands.
4. 4. The numerous reefs and coral islands scattered over the Pacific in both hemispheres.

In the Northern Hemisphere.

1. 1. The Friendly Islands, including the group of the Tonga Islands.
2. 2. The Navigators' Islands.
3. 3. The Society Islands.
4. 4. The Georgian Islands, including Otaheite, and the great range extending as far as Pitcairn's Island.
5. 5. The Marquesas.
6. 6. Easter Island.

IN THE NORTHERN HEMISPHERE.

The Ladrones.

1. The Ladrone Islands were first discovered by Magelhaens on the 6th March 1521. This name, by which they are generally known, was given to them by the Spaniards on account of the thievish disposition of the natives. They also called them Islas de los Velos Latinas, in reference to the sails of their canoes. By some they were called los Jardinas (the Gardens), and by others Dosprazeres (the Delightful Islands); and, when missionaries were first sent thither in 1668, under the patronage of Mary-Anne of Austria, queen of Philip, they took the name of las Marianas, in honour of that lady. They consist of four larger and several smaller islands. The former are called Saypan, Tinian, Zaran or Rosa, and Aguijan, or rather Guahan. Saypan has a lofty peak, evidently volcanic, but the rest are of moderate height, and are surrounded by rocks of coral formation. They lie between latitude 13° and 15½° N.; longitude about 144° E. On approaching these islands, Magelhaens perceived that they were inhabited, and the natives presently came off to the ships with cocoa-nuts, yams, and rice. They were stout well-made people, of a pale yellow complexion, long black hair, and their teeth dyed red or black; an apron of the bark of a tree was their only covering; a lance pointed with a fish bone their only weapon. Their boats had latteen (shoulder of mutton) sails, with outriggers to prevent their oversetting, and they sailed with great swiftness. The captain-general was

so delighted with the appearance of the country, that he intended to refresh his crew among them; but such numbers of the inhabitants flocked on board his ships, and were so addicted to thieving, that, being under the necessity of driving them away by force, hostilities ensued, and several of the natives were killed. Magelhaens had one of his boats stolen, which so exasperated him, that he landed with ninety of his people, set fire to their houses, which were of wood, and carried off all the provisions he could find.

The expedition of Loyosa, commanded, after his death, by Sebastian del Cano, and at his decease by Alonzo de Salazar, touched at the Ladrone Islands in 1526, and being received in the most friendly manner, procured water and provisions in plenty for the sickly squadron. To the great surprise of the Spaniards, a countryman of theirs, named Gonzalo de Vigo, came to them from one of the islands, having deserted from one of the ships of Magelhaens; two others, he said, had deserted at the same time, but were put to death by the natives. They found no quadrupeds on the island, but plenty of excellent fruits, fish, and rice. The only birds were turtle-doves, of which the islanders appeared to be so fond, that they kept them in cages, and taught them to speak.

In 1565, the Ladrone Islands were again visited by Lopez de Legaspe. While the ships were yet in their canoes, but kept at a distance from the ships. The general put knives and other articles on a plank, and floated it off, and the natives showed fruits, patting their bellies, and pointing to the shore, to induce the Spaniards to land. This they did the following day on the island of Guahan, and exchanged bits of iron for provisions; but notwithstanding the regulations made by Legaspe in order to prevent quarrels, skirmishes took place, and one of the seamen, who had strolled into the woods, being found murdered, the Spaniards landed in force, set fire to their houses and canoes, wounded several of the natives, and hung up on the spot three wounded prisoners.

No kind of animal was found on the island, nor would the natives taste any other animal food except fish. "But that which caused most admiration," says Friar Gaspar, "was, that they would drink salt water, and were such expert swimmers, and passed so much of their time in the water, that, as among other animals, some are amphibious, in like manner it seemed as if these people were in their nature amphibious."

In 1588, our countryman Candish or Cavendish came in sight of the Ladrones, and sailed along the coast of Guahan, from which a number of canoes came off with fruits and vegetables, which were exchanged for pieces of iron; but the natives became so troublesome, that, in order to get rid of them, Cavendish ordered muskets to be fired at them.

In 1600, Olivier Van Noort made the Ladrone Islands, and stopped near Guahan for two days, from which island above 200 canoes came off to the ships with fish, fruits, and rice, to exchange for iron; and fowls are also mentioned, for the first time, in this voyage. In the same year, the Santa Margarita, a

Polynesia. Spanish ship, having lost her captain and many of her crew by sickness, anchored off Saypan, and was taken possession of by the natives, who killed some of the crew, and took others of them on shore, where they were kindly treated, and such as survived were afterwards taken off by a Spanish ship which had been sent for the purpose.

By Spilbergen and the Nassau Fleet. In 1616, Spilbergen made the Ladrones Islands, and stopped two days to traffic with the natives for provisions of fruit, fowls, and fish, in exchange for bits of iron. In 1625, the fleet under Prince Maurice of Nassau refreshed at Guahan, and were supplied by 150 canoes, with immense quantities of cocoa-nuts, yams, bananas, rice, and fowls, which were of infinite service, as the scurvy had made such havoc among the crews, that in some of the ships they had scarcely strength enough to manage the sails.

Of the Spanish Jesuits. In 1668, the Spaniards established a mission on the island Guahan, consisting of P. Servitores and five other fathers, and several lay-assistants, most of them natives of the Philippine Islands, and well acquainted with the Tagul language, the same as that spoken by the natives of the Ladrones Islands. For some time the chiefs of the islands behaved with great kindness to the Jesuits, and gave them ground for building a church. From this seat of the mission the fathers spread themselves among the other islands, where they were received with equal kindness. In short, P. Servitores says, that in the first year they had baptized more than 13,000 islanders, and instructed 20,000 in the eleven islands which they had visited. As usual, however, the imprudent zeal of the missionaries ruined their cause, by shocking the prejudices of the natives. These simple people took it into their heads that, as an infant had died shortly after being baptized, its death had been occasioned in consequence of that ceremony; and such was the terror of mothers on seeing a missionary approach, that they seized their children and ran off with them into the woods. This opinion gathered ground from the eagerness of the Jesuits to get hold of infants for the purpose of baptizing them, and more than one of these holy fathers fell martyrs to their imprudent zeal. Several murders ensued; and, as the Spaniards had taken care to strengthen the mission with a body of troops well armed, with the obvious intention of taking possession of the Ladrones as an important outpost to the Philippine Islands, after a great number of the natives had been put to death, the rest submitted to the yoke of the Spaniards; though most of the missionaries suffered in the contest, and last of all Servitores, who was killed by the man to whom he had been the greatest benefactor, because the missionary insisted on baptizing his child. Thus, at the age of forty-five, this pious and good man (for such he certainly was) fell by the hand of an assassin, after having, as we are told, "established the faith in thirteen islands, founded eight churches, established three seminaries for the instruction of youth, and baptized nearly 50,000 of the islanders." From this time constant revolts and massacres, and the most inhuman cruelties, were inflicted on the unhappy islanders; so that, in 1681, the island of Guahan, which, on the first coming of the Spaniards, counted 40,000 inhabitants

(some accounts make them more), was so completely depopulated, that it was found necessary to bring inhabitants from the northern islands to cultivate the soil.

In the year 1685, the ship of John Eaton, the Buccaneer, touched at Guahan, the crew of which quarrelled with the natives, and killed some of them. Having satisfied the Spanish governor that it was done in their own defence, "he gave us toleration," says Cowley in his narrative, "to kill them all, if we could."—"We took four of these infidels prisoners," continues the narrator, "and brought them on board, binding their hands behind them; but they had not been long there, when three of them leaped overboard into the sea, swimming away from the ship, with their hands tied behind them. However, we sent the boat after them, and found a strong man, at the first blow, could not penetrate their skins with a cutlass; one of them had received, in my judgment, forty shots in his body before he died; and the last of the three that was killed had swam a good English mile first, not only with his hands behind him, as before, but also with his arms pinioned." We are told by the late Captain Burney, that it is stated in Cowley's MS. in the British Museum, that "the boat coming up with them, our carpenter, being a strong man, thought, with his sword, to cut off the head of one of them, but he struck two blows before he could fetch blood."

In 1686, Dampier touched at Guahan, and states the number of natives not to exceed 100. He gives a particular description of their "flying proas," with their outriggers, which, he says, "sail the best of any boats in the world;" that he tried the swiftness of one by his log, and that she ran twelve knots out before the half-minute glass was half out.—"I believe," says Dampier, "she would run twenty-four miles in an hour." Woodes Rogers, who visited the Ladrones in 1710, states his opinion that one of these proas would sail at the rate of twenty miles an hour.

In the month of August 1742, Commodore Anson anchored before the island of Tinian. It was deserted, but cattle to the number of at least 10,000, hogs, and fowls, were running about wild. Cocoa-nuts in innumerable quantities, bread-fruit, oranges, limes, water-melons, and other tropical fruits, were in the greatest abundance. The island swarmed with rats, and the flies, mosquitoes, and ticks or bugs, were very troublesome; but it was a paradise to the crew of the Centurion, in the horrible state of scurvy in which they arrived. Though now deserted, Tinian, on the arrival of the Spaniards, is said to have contained 30,000 inhabitants. Ruins of buildings, consisting of pyramidal pillars of considerable dimensions, were met with in all parts of the island.

Commodore Byron anchored in the year 1765 before Tinian, and found the island overgrown with large trees and underwood, among which were most of the tropical fruits. He complains bitterly of the bad anchorage, break water, venomous insects, from which they suffered so severely, that "we were afraid," he says, "to lie down in our beds;" and though his crew recovered fast from the scurvy, he lost two by fevers, being the first deaths in his ship.

Polynesia. since leaving England. "I am, indeed, of opinion," says the Commodore, "that this is one of the most unhealthy spots in the world, at least during the season in which we were here;" yet it was in the same month when visited by the Centurion.

By Kotzebue. The latest account of these islands is that of Lieutenant Kotzebue, who visited Guahan in 1817. No canoes nor proas, nor happy islanders, greeted his approach; the whole race of natives had long been extirpated. "We looked," he says, "in vain for a canoe or a man on the shore; and it almost seemed as if we were off an uninhabited island. The sight of this lovely country deeply affected me. Formerly these fertile valleys were the abode of a nation, who passed their days in tranquil happiness; now only the beautiful palm groves remained to overshadow their graves; a death-like silence everywhere prevailed." Soon, however, a person appeared from the Spanish governor, and piloted the ship into the harbour; and after this, Kotzebue proceeded to the town of Agana, situated on a beautiful plain, some hundred paces from the shore, in the midst of fine palm groves; some of the houses are built of coral rock, others of bamboo. It has a church and a convent, and two fortresses, one to protect the town from the seawards, the other to keep the Indians in awe. The town contains about 200 houses, and 1500 inhabitants, who derive their origin from Mexico and the Philippines. The population of the island is about 5000 souls. "There is but one man and his wife," says Kotzebue, "on the whole island of the original stock; with the death of these two people, the race of the old Ladrones will be totally extinguished."—"The present race," says Chamisso, "no longer know the sea; are no mariners, no swimmers; they have ceased to build boats. They now scarcely hollow out, without skill, the trunks of trees to fish within the breakers." All the other islands to the north of Guahan are entirely uninhabited, and overrun with wild cattle, hogs, and goats, which afford a supply to the American vessels trading to the Sandwich Islands and the north-west coast of America. Indeed, it is said that some of these people have been allowed to settle themselves in Agrigan, on condition of acknowledging their allegiance to Spain, and that they are peopling the island by kidnapping the natives of the Sandwich Islands.

The Carolinas. 2. The Carolinas, or Caroline Islands. In 1686, a Spanish ship, being near the meridian of the Ladrones, fell in with an island, which her Commander, Don Francisco Lazeano, named La Carolina, in honour of the King of Spain, Carlos II. This island has given the name to a very extensive chain spreading over a space of not less than six degrees of latitude, and twenty-five degrees of longitude, the western extremity being the group of the Palaos or Pellew Islands, in latitude 7° N., longitude 135° E., and the easternmost island (that of Hogolen) in latitude 9° N., longitude 155° E. The whole group, as far as is known (which, however, is very imperfectly), consists of at least 150 separate islands, and may be nearly twice as many, besides various coral reefs, with islets upon them. Yet, numerous as they

Polynesia. are, being somewhat out of the direct and usual route of the Spaniards in their voyages from South America to the Philippines, they had the good fortune to escape any intimate connection with them—a connection which has proved equally baneful to others, whether established by the cross or the sword; by their professions of friendship or avowals of hostility. Gobien, the historian of the desolating progress of the Spaniards in the Ladrones, says, that Quiroga, the governor, made search for the island Carolina, "wishing to extend the faith to its infidel inhabitants, and, for that purpose, sent some soldiers, and with them the chanionis (or chief), Don Alonzo Soon; but, after a fruitless search, and much pains, they returned without finding the object of their research."

Some of these islands, however, and especially those towards the western extremity of the group, had been seen by various navigators long before that of Carolina was noticed and named by Lazeano. The Portuguese, Da Rocha, fell in with islands in 9° or 10° N. latitude, in 1526, which he named Sequeira, after his pilot; and, in 1628, Saavedra, a Spaniard, in his passage to the Philippines, discovered islands in latitude 11°, which he named Los Reyes. In 1579, our countryman Drake saw some islands, to which he gave the name of the Islands of Thieves, which, from his description, have been supposed to be the Pellew Islands. In 1595, one of the islands in about 6° N. was seen by Mendana; but two proas full of people, driven by the violence of the wind from a group of islands in the east, as far as Samal, roused the attention of the College of Jesuits at Manila, who made several unsuccessful attempts to establish missions on those islands, which the wrecked natives described to consist of thirty-two in number. In 1710, the two fathers, Duberron and Cortel, embarked in the San Trinidad, with a crew of 86 men, to establish themselves on the Pellew Islands. They landed on Sonsorol, with the quarter-master and ensign of the troops, in all sixteen persons; but the ship being driven off by the current, made for another of the islands, called Panloque, at the supposed distance of fifty leagues from the Sonsorolles. On approaching the island, several boats came off, and some of the Palaos people swam from them to the ship, and coming on board, attempted to steal whatever they could lay their hands on. In consequence of this, they were ordered away; and having reached their boats, began to shoot arrows at the ship, which were answered by a discharge of musquetry. The ship now returned to the Sonsorolles, to inquire after the two missionaries and the boat; but the strong winds and currents would not suffer them to anchor, nor could they see or hear any thing of their companions, though they stood in towards the shore within cannon-shot. A storm coming on, left them no alternative but "to return to Manila, with the sorrowful news of what had happened." What became of the missionaries was never ascertained. The following year, however, P. Serano departed from Manila, in a ship fitted out for the purpose, in search of the two fathers and their companions; but she foundered three days after she de-

Polynesia. parted from Manilla, and every person on board perished, except one Spaniard and two Indians, who brought back the melancholy intelligence.

In the Lettres Edifiantes et Curieuses is a letter and chart from P. Juan Antonio Cantova, a missionary at Guahan, addressed to the King of Spain's confessor in 1722, in which is given a more particular account of the Carolinas than any which had before, or has since, been published. It states, that, in the preceding year, a bark, with eleven men, seven women, and six children, arrived on the east side of Guahan; and that, two days after, another canoe, with four men, one woman, and child, came to the opposite side of the island. The two parties, on being brought together, recognised each other with great joy. It appeared they had been dispersed by a gale of wind, and driven about for twenty days, without knowing where they were. Cantova thus describes them: They wore a garment open at the sides, but covering the shoulders and breast, and extending down to the knees. The women had a piece of cloth round the waist, falling, like a petticoat, to the middle of the leg. Their hair was curly, the nose large, the eyes large and penetrating, and the beards of the men moderately thick. Some had the pure colour of the Indians; others apparently of a mixed breed, between Spaniards and Indians; and others between a Negro and an Indian. Cantova succeeded in learning their language, and obtained from them the following particulars respecting their islands.

The Carolinas are divided into five provinces. Beginning at the east, the first is named Cittac; the principal island, Hogolen, much larger than Guahan; its inhabitants negroes, mulattoes, and whites. There are eighteen principal islands in this province, besides a multitude of smaller ones. The second province consists of twenty-six islands, of which Uleé and Lamurree are the principal ones. The third province consists of a group of islands, of which Feis is the principal, and is very populous and fertile; but the chief of the group resides at Mogmog, and all the proas which approach this island lower their sails in token of respect to this chief. Of the fourth province, Yap is the principal island, about 120 miles in circuit, very populous, and fruitful. The fifth province is the most westerly, and is named Panleu (the Palaos, or Pellew Islands), of which there are seven principal islands. It is remarkable that the inhabitants of these islands so far differ from the Carolinians in general, and from the account given of them in the romance of Mr Keates, drawn up by that ingenious gentleman from the documents furnished by Captain Wilson, that they are represented as a most barbarous race; both men and women going entirely naked, and feeding on human flesh. We are told by the naturalist of Kotzebue's expedition, that a Spaniard, who had lived nine months on the Pellew Islands, and whom they met with at Cavité, gave him a horrible account of the natives: that they were wholly without shame; that husbands lend their wives for a mere trifle; that the women are without modesty; and that they certainly eat human flesh; a great part of which was confirmed by a native of the Carolinas, who had been at the Pellew Islands.

Polynesia. Cantova farther learned from the islanders, that to the eastward were a great number of other islands, the inhabitants of which pay adoration to the shark; that most of them are negroes, and of savage dispositions. It is supposed that Cantova returned with these islanders in the year 1722, though no account of any such voyage is on record; but, in 1731, he embarked for the islands of the third province, in company with another father, of the name of Walter, from which the former never returned. The latter, however, returned to procure certain articles of which they stood in need, was driven to the Philippines, re-embarked in 1732, and was wrecked. Walter again embarked in May 1733, with forty-four persons. On the ninth day, they approached the island, and fired cannon to inform Cantova of their arrival, but no boat appeared. Standing within a musket-shot of the shore, they observed that their former habitation had disappeared, as well as the cross which had been erected near the sea shore. Four small canoes at length approached the vessel, bringing cocoa-nuts. On inquiring after Cantova and his companions, the islanders were evidently embarrassed, and said they were gone to Yap. Being fearful, by their manner, that the good father had fallen by the hands of the barbarians, and willing to be satisfied on this head, they seized one of the islanders, upon which the rest swam ashore. After the strongest assurances that no harm should be done to him, provided he would tell the truth, he confessed that shortly after the departure of Walter, the natives put the Father Cantova to death and all his companions, fourteen in number. Cantova, it seemed, from this man's account, went, with his interpreter and two soldiers, to the Island Mogmog, to baptize, while the rest remained at Falalep. He had scarcely set his foot on shore when he was surrounded and pierced through and through with lances, the natives crying out that he was come to take away the old law, and give them a new one. They gave his body a decent burial, but the bodies of his companions were put into a canoe, which was then turned adrift upon the ocean. The same people then went over to the island of Falalep, and put to death the remainder of the companions of Cantova.

Since that time, little or no information has been procured respecting the Carolinas, with the exception of that which is contained in the narrative of Mr Keates, from the materials of Captain Wilson, who, when commander of the Antelope packet, in the service of the East India Company, was wrecked on Oolong, one of the Pellew Islands. Whatever their general character may be, the crew of the Antelope found them a friendly, hospitable, and humane people. They were stout, well-made, rather above the middle size, and their colour approaching to a deep brown; their hair long, some wearing it loose, and others turned up. The men were entirely naked; the women contented themselves with two little aprons or fringes, made of the fibres of the cocoa-nut husk, about ten inches deep and seven wide, one of which was worn before, and the other behind. Both sexes were tattooed; the men had one ear perforated, the women both, and they wore beads, tortoise-shell, or leaves, as suited their fancy; the car-

Polynesia. tilage of the nose was also bored, and a little sprig or blossom of some plant was generally stuck in the hole; their teeth were dyed black by a paste prepared of certain herbs, which, it is pretended, caused severe sickness for five days, the time required to complete the operation.

Their Productions, and the Manners of the Natives. Fish and cocoa-nuts are the chief articles of food, but the islands afford an abundant supply of yams, plantains, oranges, lemons, bread-fruit, carambola, and the areca nut; the sugar-cane grew wild. No quadruped, except rats, was found on the islands; of birds, the pigeon was the most abundant, and the domestic fowl ran wild in the woods. The natives were wholly unacquainted with the use of salt. Their usual beverage was the milk of the cocoa-nut. Their houses were of bamboo and plank, raised upon stones from the ground. The husk of the cocoa-nut supplied them with nets and cordage, and the tortoise-shell with hooks to catch fish. Their knives were made of mother-of-pearl, shells, or split bamboo; the cocoa-nut served them for cups, the plantain-leaf for plates, and the fibres of this plant for mats to sleep on. Their weapons were spears of wood, darts, and slings. Their boats were canoes, made of the trunks of large trees, and some of them sufficiently capacious to hold from twenty to thirty persons. In the day time they seemed to live as much in the water as on shore, and both sexes were admirable swimmers. The women mixed freely with the other sex, and their conduct was not strictly inquired into by their husbands. They seemed to have little sense of any religious duties, except in the ceremonies attending the burial of the dead, which takes place in spots set aside for that purpose, and with great solemnity; but they have some faint notion that the soul survives the body. Their graves very much resembled those in a country church-yard of England, some having earth heaped up in the same manner, and others covered with flat tombstones, and protected by fences of wicker work.

The larger of the Pellow Islands are of a moderate height, rising into beautiful hills, well clothed with forest trees. The natural history still remains unknown, but being about the same parallel, and of the same formation with the numerous group visited by Kotzebue, the plants and animals are in all probability much the same. The smaller islands are the productions of the coral-making animals, with which the larger are also surrounded to a great distance from their shores.

The Sandwich Islands. 3. The Sandwich Islands.—This fine group of islands in the Northern Pacific had the good fortune to escape the visits of the old navigators, and the discovery of them was reserved for Captain Cook, who first touched at them in the year 1778, and lost his valuable life there in 1779. M. Fleurieu, in his introduction to Marchand's Voyage, is disposed to dispute this claim, and to assign the first discovery of these islands to Mendana, for no other reason but that it appears he passed at no great distance from Owyhee (but without seeing it), on his return voyage in 1568; and because he finds an island named Mesa, laid down on the nineteenth parallel of latitude, on the obscure and unauthenticated chart of Galion de Manille. It is almost unnecessary to add,

that the name by which they are now known was given to them by Captain Cook, in honour of the Earl of Sandwich, under whose naval administration geography was enriched with many important discoveries.

Captain King makes the group to consist of eleven islands, the principal of which are Owyhee, said to contain about 150,000 inhabitants,—its extent about 6000 square miles; Mowhee, 65,000,—extent 600 square miles; Woahoo, 60,000,—extent 1800 square miles; Atooi, 54,000,—extent 1000 square miles; and Morotoi, 36,000,—extent 300 square miles. The rest are smaller, and make up a population for the whole group of about 400,000 souls. They are situated between latitude 18° 54' N. (the south point of Owyhee), and 22° 2' N. (the latitude of Orehoue), and between the longitude 199° 36' (the small island of Tahoura), and 205° 6' (the eastern extremity of Owyhee).

The island of Owyhee is described as rising majestically in grand unbroken lines from the ocean, and forming three several mountain peaks, on two of which snow lies the greater part of the year. They are as under:

These measurements, as given by Kotzebue, agree within a few toises with those of Marchand. The whole group is of volcanic origin, and on the summit of Mouna Wororai is an immense crater. The last eruption from the side of this mountain took place in 1801. The chain of mountains runs from the N. W. point of Owyhee, over the islands Mowhee, Morotoi, and Woahoo. On Mowhee is a peak as high nearly as that of Wororai, but the latter is the only volcano in a state of activity.

These islands, though volcanic, are surrounded by coral reefs, and the plains next the sea, raised only a few feet above it, were once of the same description, and covered with water. These plains are generally naked and sun-burnt, but the valleys among the mountains are beautifully picturesque and fertile, and the sides of the hills are covered with magnificent forests. The most fertile and best cultivated of the group is Woahoo, on which is the safe and capacious harbour of Hana-rura, protected by a coral reef, through a break of which the entrance to it lies. In one of the mountains a diamond mine was supposed to exist, but the products turned out to be only quartz crystals. In the Pearl River of this island oysters have been found, containing pearls, but none of much value.

Among the indigenous plants mentioned by Chamisso, the naturalist of Kotzebue's expedition, are the accacia, metrosideros, pandanus, santalum, aleurites, dracena, amomium, curcuma, tacca. The families of rubiaceæ, contortæ, and urticæ, predominate. From the latter, as well as from the paper mulberry (Broussonetia papyrifera), are made their cordage and cloths. The accacia tree used for their boats and canvas grows only in the mountains, which is the case also with the sandal-wood, the principal article of export from the islands.

Polynesia.
Cultivation. The plants mostly in use for domestic purposes are the banana-tree, the coco-nut tree, the bread-fruit, sugar-cane, yam, batatos, and the taro-root (Arum esculentum), of indigenous growth; besides which have been introduced the tobacco plant, the melon, and water-melon, rice, and the vine, the last of which will unquestionably thrive well on the sides of the volcanic mountains. The cultivation of the taro-root has the greatest share of attention bestowed on it; and, in fact, it constitutes a considerable portion of the food of the people. The fields or ponds in which this root is planted are inclosed with stones in the form of regular squares, from 100 to 200 feet each side; these squares are connected by sluices to convey the water from one to the other, pretty much in the same manner that the Chinese manage their rice fields. "I have seen," says Kotzebue, "whole mountains covered with such fields, through which the water gradually flowed; each sluice formed a small cascade, which ran through avenues of sugar-cane, or banana, into the next pond, and afforded an extremely picturesque prospect."

Distillation of Spirits. A convict from New South Wales has taught the people of these islands the art of distilling ardent spirits from sugar-cane, and a plant called the Tee-root (the Dracaena terminalis). And, as every chief has now his still, it is probable that the use of the pernicious kava will give way to that of the almost equally pernicious use of spirituous liquors. This kava is the liquor or juice of a root of the pepper tribe (Piper methysticum), chewed and spit out into a large bowl, and then diluted with water, and this exquisite beverage is prepared for the sole use of the king and the nobles, the women being prohibited from tasting it. The baneful effects of this liquor have been noticed by most voyagers; the bodies of those who swallow it are, in process of time, covered with a white scurf, their eyes become red and inflamed, their limbs emaciated, and their whole frame trembling and paralytic.

Quadrupeds. When Captain Cook first discovered these islands, the only quadrupeds upon them were hogs, dogs, and rats. They have now horses (not many), asses, horned cattle, many of them running wild in the mountains, and goats. Hogs are exceedingly abundant. "They are so large," says Kotzebue, "that the whole crew could not eat one in two days;" and the flavour, from being fed on sugar-cane, is very superior to European pork. Fowls, ducks, and geese, are equally abundant.

Progressive Civilization. The Sandwich Islands, though last discovered, have been more frequently visited by Europeans and Americans, and particularly by the latter, than any other group of islands in the whole range of Polynesia; and they have profited the most by such intercourse, though not by any means to that extent which might have been wished. Indeed, what little progress they have made towards civilization is mainly to be attributed to the personal character of the present chief or king, whose name is Tamaa-mah; and that which he has effected is more for his individual advantage than the good of his subjects. When Captain Vancouver visited these islands in 1792, the king being desirous of having a vessel of European construction, this able navigator laid down

the keel of one, which was speedily finished. Ten or twelve years after this, when Mr Turnbull visited the islands, he had a naval force of twenty vessels or upwards, from 25 to 50 tons, which traded among the islands. He had built a house for himself, after the European manner, with windows of glass, and he imitated the English in his dress. By means of English and American seamen and artificers, some of whom deserted from ships touching there, and others obtained regular permission to remain on the islands, most of the trades exercised in Europe have partially been introduced into the Sandwich Islands.

Most of those people having taken to themselves native wives, a new race of men is springing up, which, in the course of time, may probably be the means of hastening the civilization of these islands. It is much to be regretted, however, that hitherto no steps have been taken to bring up the new generation in the principles of morality and religion, or for instructing them in the common rudiments of education. Tamaa-mah is ready enough to imitate the Europeans in his dress and dwelling, in building forts for the protection of his islands, and in training his troops in the European mode of discipline, of whom Kotzebue saw 400 drawn out, armed with musquets. In these matters, he is willing enough to be instructed by the Europeans who have settled on the islands, who, generally speaking, are of a description not likely to convince him of the utility of intellectual acquirements. In a visit to the Morai, pointing to the large wooden statues, he said to Kotzebue, "These are our gods, whom I worship. Whether I do right or wrong, I do not know, but I follow my faith, which cannot be wicked, as it commands me never to do wrong." Such sentiments do honour to the savage; and the man who entertains them is capable of being instructed in better things.

He is very tenacious in observing the customs of the country, and says, that, although those of Europeans are better, he cannot depart from his own. Thus the women continue to be degraded and despised; and, notwithstanding the frequent intercourse with strangers, and the improvements which undoubtedly have been introduced, the sex do not appear to have gained a single step in the estimation of the men, or lost any part of the grossness of behaviour since they were first visited by Captain Cook. That "offensively conspicuous wantonness," which Vancouver deplores, and to which he found no parallel in the whole of Polynesia, appears to have suffered no abatement. When Campbell, the seaman, was on the island of Woahoo, the king's brother died, on which occasion, as part of the general mourning, a public prostitution of the women took place. The captain of a ship, then in the harbour, remonstrated with the king, who coolly observed, it was their custom, and he could not prevent it. The women, too, it seems, are more addicted to drinking than the men. The governor of Woahoo invited Kotzebue and his officers to witness a dance of the natives, at which he was not present, but sent an apology to say, that his lady was so drunk that he could not leave her. The women are also great smokers of tobacco, and continue it sometimes till they fall down senseless.

Though the women are so far degraded that they cannot eat in the same house with their lords and masters, and must not taste at all of certain articles, yet if the latter be sick, they must howl and make lamentations, tear their hair, lacerate their cheeks; and if he should die (provided he be a Jerrie, Eree, or noble), the favourite wife must die with him. The victims, both men and women, who are to be sacrificed at the death of Tamaa-mah are well known, nor is it concealed even from themselves, and they glory in the distinction. "I have myself," says Kotzebue, "seen one of the devoted victims in Woahoo, a man who was always cheerful and happy." On the death of the king, these people will be led bound into the royal Morai (temple and burning place), where, after the prescribed ceremonies, they will suffer death at the hands of the priests. Chamisso, however, says, that this inhuman practice is wearing out, and that now culprits only, whose lives have been forfeited, are sacrificed to the gods on particular occasions. But though the custom of offering up human sacrifices is still retained, there are no grounds whatever for supposing, as the surgeon of Captain Cook's ship did, that they ever taste of human flesh.

To violate the sanctity of the Morai is one of the greatest crimes of which a man can be guilty. Campbell was present at the execution of a man who had committed this offence, in getting drunk and running out of the Morai during tabboo time. He was taken back to the Morai, where his eyes were put out; in this state he remained two days, when he was strangled and his body exposed before the image of Etooah, or Eatooah, the principal deity, who, according to their belief, is the creator of the universe, and who afterwards destroyed it by an inundation that covered the whole earth except Mou-na Roa; on the top of which one single pair had the good fortune to save themselves, from whom the present race of men, that is, the Sandwich Islanders, sprung. Each chief has his own peculiar deity and his own Morai, and dresses up his wooden god after his own fashion. The common people have also their own objects of worship in their houses—birds, beasts, fish, &c. just like the fetishes of the Africans on the coast of Guinea.

That singular superstition by which the king, the nobles, and the priests, under the name of Tabboo, have contrived to render sacred and inviolable whatever they may wish to appropriate to their own use, and which is in universal operation through the whole of Polynesia, is practised to a great extent in the Sandwich Islands. By means of it, a whole people is contented to be robbed of their property, and to suffer any privations that may be imposed on them without murmuring. When their houses are tabbooed they dare not enter them; when their taro-roots or their hogs are tabbooed, they surrender them without a struggle; but in return, it must be owned, they are not scrupulous in appropriating to themselves whatever is not tabbooed.

Among the customs which they inveterately retain is that of tattooing the body, this operation being also universal among the islanders of the Pacific. The hands and arms of the women, in particular, are mark-

ed with peculiar elegance of figure, and many of Polynesia. the women have the tip of the tongue tattooed. Con-
trary, however, to the common practice of the is-
landers, they do not paint their bodies, nor wear or-
naments of any kind in the ears; but the women de-
corate their hair, which is cut short, with wreaths of
flowers, and wear necklaces, bracelets, and anklets of
shells, coral, and other substances. The common
dress of the men is the maro, a piece of cloth about
a foot wide, which, passing between the legs, is tied
round the waist; that of the women is a short petti-
coat, reaching about half-way down the thigh. The
chiefs, on days of ceremony, and on particular oc-
casions, wear cloaks made of the most beautiful fea-
thers, with an elegant shaped helmet to correspond.
They are ambitious, however, to appear in the dress
of Europeans, to enable them to do which, great
quantities of old laced coats are carried out to the
Sandwich Islands, as articles of commerce.

To whatever degree of civilization the Sandwich
islanders may have attained, since the first disco-
very of Captain Cook, it is to be ascribed, as we said
before, to the personal character of Tamaa-mah;
but whether they will continue to proceed or to re-
trograde, on the death of this extraordinary man, is
a matter of great doubt, considering the character
of his son and successor. The old man, however,
has caused him to be tabbooed, or made sacred, so
that nobody is allowed, on pain of death, to see him
by day. This being done, he receives the appella-
tion of Leo-leo, "that is," says Kotzebue, "dog of
all dogs; and such we really found him."—"We
entered," he continues, "a neat and small house,
in which Leo-leo, a tall, corpulent, and naked figure,
was stretched out on his stomach, and just indolently
raised his head to look at his guests; near him
sat several naked soldiers armed with muskets, who
guarded the monster. A handsome young native,
with a tuft of red feathers, drove away the flies from
him—The dog of all dogs at last rose very lazily, and
gaped upon us with a stupid vacant countenance."
His age is stated to be about twenty-two, but his
corpulency is somewhat enormous for one so young.
This description does not certainly portend much in
favour of the future happiness of the Sandwich
Islands, for the vacant government of which there
will probably start up many competitors. An Euro-
pean of talent, if such there should happen to be
on the spot, might probably succeed to the go-
vernment and civilization of this good humoured,
and by no means untractable people.

4. Coral Islands and Reefs.—The number and
position of the multitude of low islands, sometimes
found in groups, and sometimes solitary, are by
no means yet ascertained; but from the various
tracts of ships, it is known that the whole of that
part of the Pacific lying between the equator and
the 10° of north latitude, and from the Pellow Is-
lands, to 180° longitude, being at least forty-five de-
grees of longitude, is completely studded with low cor-
al islands and reefs in countless numbers, some of them
inhabited, and others not; and in different stages,
from the circular reef, with islets rising upon it like
the beads of a necklace, with a lagoon in the centre,
to the complete consolidation into one firm island.

Polynesia. About the tenth parallel, and proceeding easterly from the Carolinas, we have Button, Tindall, Watt's, and Gilbert's Islands; and about the longitude 175° east, a whole group, extending to the southward of the equator, named on some charts "Lord Mulgrave's Range," on others "Scarborough's Range;" some of the individual islands of which are Smith's, Allen's, Gillespie's, Toulmin's, Hopper's, Chatham's, Calvert's, Robertson's, Arrowsmith's, Daniel's, Marshall's, Pott's, near to which are Kingmill's Group and Byron's Island, all of coral formation.

Various accounts have been given by Cook, Forster, Flinders, and others, of the progressive formation of these low specks of land, with which the Pacific is studded; but the best and most satisfactory is that by Kotzebue and the naturalist Chamisso. They not only saw the "Lord Mulgrave's" chain of islands, which extend from 1° to 12° N., of which Gilbert's Islands form the northern, and Marshall's Island the southern, extremity, but they discovered and examined minutely many other groups and detached islands. Between the eighth and tenth degrees of north latitude, and between longitude 188° 48' and 190° 46', they fell in with no less than six distinct groups, to which they understood the natives applied the name of Radack; and they learned that to the westward were nine other groups, and three detached islands, called Ralick, besides four groups to the southward. The Radack chain is probably those which were seen by Captain Marshall in 1788, and to which he gave the name of Chatham and Calvert Islands, though Krusenstern thinks that these are the same as the Ralick chain. It is not of much importance, in a geographical point of view, whatever it might be for the benefit of navigation.

The small size of Kotzebue's vessel gave him the advantage of sailing through the openings in the circular reefs, and of examining the lagoons within them. From his account, it would seem that the coral-making animals do not commence their labours at the very depth of the ocean, as has been supposed, but on rocky shoals, the summits, in all probability, of submarine mountains, round which they lay the foundation of their extraordinary fibres, forming an united chain, irregular in shape, but generally approaching, more or less, to a circle. The greatest depth at which they are able to derive a sufficient degree of light and heat for their operations has not yet been ascertained; but we know that marine animals have been drawn up in a living state from the depth of a thousand fathoms, and from a temperature very little above that of the freezing point. The outer edge of the reef exposed to the surf of the sea is the first that shows itself above water; in process of time, it becomes indurated, breaks, and crumbles, by the action of the sea, and at length forms a sort of barrier, within the sloping sides of which the living animals are seen carrying on their operations. Those observed by Chamisso were the Tubipora musica, the Millepora carulea, obstichopora, actinas, and various kinds of the polypus. He found the living branches of the lythophytes generally attached to the dead stems; many of the latter, however, crumbled into sand, which, accumulating on the inner declivity, constitutes no inconsiderable part of the surface of

the new islands, which rise out of this reef, and are gradually united into one island, having in its centre a salt water lake, that alternately grows up by a silent and slow progress, till what was at first a chain of islets, has become one connected mass of land. The progress towards a state fit for the habitation of man is thus described by Chamisso:—

"As soon as it has reached such a height, that it remains almost dry at low water, at the time of ebb, the corals leave off building higher; sea-shells, fragments of coral, sea-hedgehog shells, and their broken off prickles, are united by the burning sun, through the medium of the cementing calcareous sand, which has arisen from the pulverization of the above-mentioned shells into one whole or solid stone, which, strengthened by the continual throwing up of new materials, gradually increases in thickness, till it at last becomes so high, that it is covered only during some seasons of the year by the high tides. The heat of the sun so penetrates the mass of stone when it is dry, that it splits in many places, and breaks off in flakes. These flakes, so separated, are raised one upon another by the waves at the time of high water. The always active surf throws blocks of coral (frequently of a fathom in length, and three or four feet thick) and shells of marine animals between and upon the foundation stones; after this, the calcareous sand lies undisturbed, and offers to the seeds of trees and plants, cast upon it by the waves, a soil upon which they rapidly grow, to overshadow its dazzling white surface. Entire trunks of trees, which are carried by the rivers from other countries and islands, find here, at length, a resting place, after their long wanderings: with these come some small animals, such as lizards and insects, as the first inhabitants. Even before the trees form a wood, the real sea-birds nestle there; strayed land-birds take refuge in the bushes; and, at a much later period, when the work has been long since completed, man also appears, builds his hut on the fruitful soil, formed by the corruption of the leaves of the trees, and calls himself lord and proprietor of this new creation."

IN THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE.

1. The Friendly Islands.—The Friendly Islands, Friendly Islands. among which may also be included the Feejee Islands, were first discovered by Abel Jansen Tasman in 1643, to three of which he gave the names of Amsterdam, Middleburgh, and Rotterdam. The first of these islands is that which was afterwards visited by Captain Cook, and described by him under the name of Tongataboo; more properly, as we since learn from Mr Mariner, Tonga, the annexed word Tabboo, so extensively used throughout Polynesia, being expressive only of its sacred character. From the inhabitants of this island Tasman received yams, cocoa-nuts, bananas, hogs, and fowls, in exchange for iron, nails, beads, and pieces of linen. They had also plenty of sugar-canes. Women as well as men swam off to the ship, and it was observed that all the elder dames had the little finger of both hands cut off, but the young women had not. They wore round the middle a covering of mat-work, which reached down to their knees; the rest of the body naked. None of the

Polynesia. men would taste wine, and they were ignorant of the use of tobacco; they had no arms of any kind, which led Tasman to conclude that they lived in perpetual peace and friendship.

Tasman next touched at Ammoomooka, or, as he called it, Amsterdam Island, in the hope of meeting with better water than on the first, where it was bad and scanty. On landing, they perceived some sixty or seventy persons sitting quietly on the shore, who had no arms of any kind, and appeared to be a harmless and peaceable people. There were, besides, many women and children, the former clothed like those on Amsterdam Island, but they were of a larger size, and as strong in their bodies and limbs as the men. The party was shown to a piece of fresh water not a mile from the shore, about a quarter of a mile in circumference, and about a musket-shot from the north side of the island, where there was a good sandy bay. Here they watered their ships, and received abundance of provisions, the same in kind as those of the other island. The inhabitants are described as being great thieves, but very friendly. They have large vessels with masts, sails, and outriggers, as well as canoes, and on going into the interior of the island it was observed that all their plantations were laid out in neat and regular order. "In our walk," says Tasman, "we saw several pieces of cultivated ground or gardens, where the beds were regularly laid out into squares, and planted with different plants and fruits; bananas and other trees placed in straight lines, which made a pleasant show, and spread round about a very agreeable and fine odour; so that among these people, who have the form of the human species, but no human manners, you may see traces of reason and understanding." He says they have no religion, no idols, relics, or priests; but that they have their superstitions, as a man was seen to take up a water-snake, which, after placing it respectfully upon his head, he threw back into the water. Indeed, they seem averse from hurting any thing that has life, for though the flies are numerous and troublesome, they will not kill them, and one of the principal people was offended on perceiving the steersman kill a fly, though accidentally. Captain Cook bears testimony to the beauty and fertility of the Tonga Islands. "There was not," says this celebrated man, "an inch of waste ground; the roads occupied no more space than was absolutely necessary; the fences did not take up above four inches each, and even this was not wholly lost, for in many were planted some useful trees or plants. It was everywhere the same; change of place altered not the scene; nature, assisted by a little art, nowhere appears in more splendour than here." The missionaries, too, in 1797, found these islands in as high a state of cultivation and beauty as they appeared to Tasman and to Cook.

A woful difference in their peaceable habits, according to Mr Mariner, has taken place since the visits of these Europeans. In 1799 a revolution took place, and from that time bloody wars and most savage slaughter have desolated these beautiful islands. They first commenced, as it would appear, by a most atrocious savage, in whom the kingly power was vested, who not only practised the most barbarous

cruelties on his subjects, but seized upon the sacred or ecclesiastical power, which had always, as in Japan, been kept separate from the secular arm. The sacred spell being thus broken, which rested solely on public opinion, a complete revolution followed, and from that hour these once happy islands have been the scene of slaughter, famine, and every species of horror and misery. We must not, however, give implicit credit to all that has been stated by Dr Martin, the writer of Mariner's account of these islands, but rather consider it as a romantic exaggeration of facts and descriptions, similar to that of the Pellew Islands by Mr Keats. There are shades of difference merely between the inhabitants of these and of the neighbouring islands.

2. Navigator's Islands.—To the north-east of the Feejee, Tonga, or Friendly Islands, are situated the Bauman or Navigator's Islands. The first name was given to them after Captain Bauman, of the Teinhoven, by Jacob Roggewein, by whom they were discovered in 1722; the latter name was conferred by Bougainville, who passed them in 1768. La Perouse likewise visited these islands, and is of opinion that they are not the same as Bauman's Islands, because their geographical position does not agree with that assigned to them by Roggewein. Burney, however, has no doubt that they are identical, the only difference being in their supposed longitude, which, in the time of Roggewein, was frequently set down erroneously by several degrees.

These islands form an archipelago, consisting of ten in number, according to La Perouse, of which the Maouna, Oylava, and Pola, are the largest and most beautiful. The parallel of 14° south latitude, and the meridian of 190°, pass through the centre of the group. They are said by La Perouse to be volcanic, but surrounded by coral reefs. Roggewein describes the hills and valleys as affording a delightful prospect. The natives came off in boats neatly made and carved, bringing fish, cocoa-nuts, and plantains. They are said to have white skins but tanned by the sun, gentle in their manners towards each other, lively and good humoured; their bodies were neither painted nor marked, and they were clothed from the waist downwards; the cultivated grounds were all enclosed, and, in short, they are described by the writer of Roggewein's voyage as the most civilized and honest people they had met with among the islands of the South Sea. We may conclude, indeed, from his account, that they were equally well cultivated, and the inhabitants equally mild and peaceable with those of the Friendly Islands.

Very different, however, is the account given of them by La Perouse. Feroceous in the highest degree, he describes them as utterly destitute of gratitude and every good moral feeling; that a look of disdain is stamped on all their countenances, and that they are eternally fighting with each other, so that their bodies are covered with scars occasioned by the blows of clubs. Tall in stature, their limbs are of colossal proportions; and their bodies are tattooed to such a degree as to make them appear clothed, though they have only a girdle of sea-weeds round their loins, which reaches to the knee. The

Polynesia. size of the women corresponds with that of the men, and their whole behaviour is represented as highly indecent and disgusting. They had no desire for iron, preferring their own adzes and other tools made of basalt. Their huts were made with great nicety, and all their wood-work was highly polished and carved. Their matting and cloth were exceedingly beautiful; the latter woven with thread made from the nettle, and a species of flax. The sails of their boats or canoes were made of this cloth. The islands are so intersected with creeks, that they travel from place to place almost universally in canoes, which have outriggers to prevent them over-setting.

Fertility. All the islands were clothed with trees up to the very summit of the hills, many of them laden with fruit. The villages are ranged along the margin of the streams which fall from the mountains, and are built in the midst of groves of cocoa, banana, guava, and other fruit trees common to the South Sea islands. The woods abound with wild pigeons and turtle doves, which are tamed by the natives, and kept about their houses in flocks of many hundreds. Sugar-cane grows abundantly and without culture. Their animals are pigs, dogs, and the domestic fowl; these and the fish, which they catch with great expertness, afford them an abundant supply of food.

Society Islands. 3. Society Islands.—The first account of these islands is given in the voyage of Jacob Roggewein, who touched at Ulietea in the year 1722; at least it is conjectured by Burney on probable grounds, that the Verquickking or Recreation Island of that navigator is the same. On sending a boat on shore, the inhabitants assembled on the beach, and advanced into the water armed with lances to oppose their landing. The Hollanders fired upon them, and having dispersed them, landed on the beach, and the inhabitants returned in a friendly manner, and brought them cocoa-nuts and other articles of food. The Hollanders then advanced up a valley towards the mountains, but some thousands of the natives coming out of the glens and crevices, made signs to them to return. The Hollanders, however, paid no regard but proceeded, upon which showers of stones were hurled at them, by which some were killed and others wounded. These volleys were answered by a discharge of musketry, which killed many of the islanders, who, nevertheless, continued the action, and finally drove the Dutchmen into their boats. Many of the latter subsequently died of the wounds they had received in consequence of the bad state of their constitutions, being severely affected with the scurvy.

Description. Captain Cook visited these islands in 1769, and again in 1777. They consist of six in number (besides small coral islets), whose names are Ulietea and Otaheite (both encompassed by the same coral reef), Huaheine, Bolabola, Tubai, and Maurua. They extend from about 16° to 17° south latitude, and from 151° to 152° west longitude. The climate, the productions, and the inhabitants, resemble so nearly those of Otaheite, that the same description will apply to both. The surfaces of all the islands are uneven and hilly, but not mountainous, and the hills are finely wooded. The inhabitants, like those

of the Navigator's Islands, are generally of a larger stature than the Otaheitans. The late Sir Joseph Banks measured one of the natives of Huaheine, and found him to be six feet three inches and a half in height, and the women are described as generally more handsome and somewhat fairer than those of Otaheite. Bolabola differs from the rest of the islands by having a lofty double peaked mountain near its centre, apparently volcanic. In Ulietea there is a large morai, in which a number of jaw-bones are kept as trophies of war. The coral reefs which every where surround these islands form numerous safe and commodious harbours for shipping, and refreshments of hogs, fowls, plantains, cocoa-nuts, and yams, are generally to be had in great abundance.

4. The Georgian Islands, including Otaheite, &c. The Georgian Islands.—Otaheite is the chief island of this vast group, which extends over fifteen degrees of longitude, in the direction of south-east. The extreme point is Pitcairn's Island, lately become interesting on account of the discovery of the descendants of the mutineer Christian and some of his associates. The natives of this vast chain of islands, and particularly of Otaheite, may probably be considered as the most civilized, but, at the same time, the most sensual people in all Polynesia. It was first discovered by Quiros, in 1606, and received from him the name of Sagittaria. The natives received the strangers with great kindness, gave them cocoa-nuts and other fruits, and a general interchange of civilities and presents soon took place. This good understanding remained uninterrupted, and the Spaniards, for once, left the island without having quarrelled with the inhabitants. In their zeal, however, they committed an act which, if discovered, might have been attended with unpleasant circumstances. The place at which they first landed was uninhabited, but in passing through a wood they discovered a Morai, in which they concluded "the enemy of mankind resided;" and under this impression, cut down a tree, which they formed into a cross, and planted in the midst of the sacred building.

In 1765, Commodore Byron discovered two low islands to the northward of Otaheite, which, in honour of his Majesty, he named George's Islands, one of which, afterwards visited by Cook, is called Tiookea; the natives of these islands were very dark coloured, robust, and apparently ferocious; their bodies were marked with the figure of a fish.

In 1767, Captain Wallis touched at Otaheite, and went through the ceremony of taking possession of the island in the name of his Sovereign; but the flag was removed by the natives in the night. Various squabbles occurred between the seamen and the natives, who, however, behaved on the whole with great kindness and hospitality. Most of the quarrels were owing to the licentious intercourse of the seamen with the native women. In 1768, M. de Bougainville visited Otaheite, and was most hospitably received; in return for which, several murders were committed by the French seamen. Captain (then Lieutenant) Cook anchored in Matavai Bay in April 1769. It is from this and his several subsequent visits, together with a missionary voyage in the ship

Polynesia. Duff, commanded by Captain Wilson, 1796—1798, that Otaheite is so well known to us.

Otaheite. The island consists of two peninsulas, connected by a low isthmus, about three miles in width, covered with brushwood. The larger, Otaheite Nove, is about ninety miles in circumference, and nearly circular; the smaller, Tiaraboo, is about thirty miles; the whole nearly surrounded by a low belt of land, from a furlong to a mile in width, which is prolonged by a gradual rise to the valleys which run up to the foot of the lofty central mountain. These valleys and their intermediate ridges are beautiful, clothed with a great variety of trees to their very summits; in the valleys are mostly met with clear streams of water, which, in the rainy season, become mountain-torrents. The island being surrounded with coral reefs, is dangerous to approach, and the only safe harbour is that of Matavai, on the northern side, in latitude $17^\{\backslash circ\}\; 30\text{'}\; S.$ longitude $149^\{\backslash circ\}\; 13\text{'}\; W.$ This too is not free from danger, from December to March. The climate is delightful, the thermometer seldom rising above $80^\{\backslash circ\}$ in summer, and ranging from $62^\{\backslash circ\}$ to $72^\{\backslash circ\}$ in winter.

Productions. The island is so fertile as to produce every thing in abundance, and without toil, for the sustenance of man. The bread-fruit is here superior to that which grows on the other islands. The fruit affords them a most nutritive food, either for present use, or made into a paste called mahe, which will keep till the following season; the trunk supplies them with timber for their buildings and canoes; it exudes a gum, which serves for pitch, and from the inner bark is manufactured a substantial cloth. They reckon no less than thirty varieties of this most useful tree, which, with the different exposures to the trade winds, and the difference of elevation above the sea, afford to the natives a bread-fruit harvest at almost all seasons of the year. The cocoa-nut, next to the bread-fruit, supplies them with meat, drink, cloth, and oil. Of plantains, they reckon fifteen different sorts. Yams and sweet potatoes, taro-root of different kinds, and various other edible roots and fruits, are most abundantly produced; to which our missionaries have added the pine-apple, the grape, and various culinary vegetables of Europe; but the natural and spontaneous productions of the soil, and the consequent indolence of the people, are unfavourable to their success.

Animals. The animals found on the island are hogs, dogs, and rats. Several attempts have been made to introduce the horse and horned cattle, sheep and goats, but without success. The latter are so disliked for their smell and the mischief they did to their plantations, that they drove them into the mountains, where they run wild. The breed of cats has succeeded, and found to be extremely useful; and rabbits have been introduced, but we know not with what success. Common poultry are abundant, and the woods supply vast quantities of wild pigeons and parrots. The tropic-bird builds its nest in the steep cliffs, and as their long feathers are highly valued, they are taken on the nest by lowering down a man seated across a stick, by a rope, to the depth of thirty or forty fathoms; in which situation, by means of a long pole, he swings himself from side to

side, examining all the holes as he descends, in order to take the bird on her nest. The shores abound with sea fowl, and the sea with excellent fish, which they take with great expertness by hook and line, or by the net. Dolphins are caught at a distance from the shore, by baiting the hook with a real or artificial flying fish. Their fishing-tackle displays the greatest ingenuity, and can only be exceeded by their skill in using it. Their hooks are made of pearl-shells, bone, and hard wood. The coast abounds with lobsters, crabs, and various kinds of shell-fish.

Inhabitants. The colour of the natives is that of olive, or light copper. The men are above the middle size; the chiefs almost uniformly tall, muscular, and well-limbed, measuring from five feet nine inches to six feet four inches, and continue healthy and vigorous to a good old age. The women of the upper ranks are also tall, with limbs finely turned. Their skins soft and delicate; eyes black, sparkling, and full of expression; teeth beautifully white and even; their hair jet black, and generally ornamented with flowers; in their gait they are firm, but easy and graceful. From a custom of compressing the face when infants, they can scarcely be called beauties; yet, according to the account of Captain Wilson, they possess feminine graces in an eminent degree; "their faces never being darkened with a scowl, or covered with a cloud of sullenness or suspicion." They are affable and engaging; mild, gentle, and unaffected; courteous to each other and to strangers. The whole of the body to the middle of the leg is clothed; but there is a singular custom which compels a woman to uncover her shoulders and breasts in the presence of a chief, or in passing a morai, or sacred place. The lower classes have always been described as extremely licentious, but Captain Cook says they have been much calumniated. "It is too true," say the writers of the Missionary Voyage, "that, for the sake of gaining our extraordinary curiosities, and to please our brutes, they have appeared immodest in the extreme. Yet they lay the charge wholly at our door, and say the Englishmen are ashamed at nothing, and that we have led them to public acts of indecency never before practised among themselves." It must be admitted, however, that the most abandoned conduct is freely indulged by the women of the Arreoy society, who, to the crime of unbounded licentiousness, add that of murdering their children the moment they are born. In recent accounts, however, it is stated, that this horrible practice has been abolished, and that Christianity is making a rapid progress among these interesting islanders.

As wives, the Otaheitan women are tenderly affectionate to their husbands and children, nursing and attending the latter with the utmost care. They never, on any occasion, strike a child. A melancholy instance of the fidelity and affection of one of these women is given in the Missionary Voyage. "The history of Peggy Stewart marks a tenderness of heart that never will be heard without emotion. She was daughter of a chief, and taken for his wife by Mr Stewart, one of the unhappy mutineers (of the Bounty). They had lived with the old chief in the most tender state of endearment; a beautiful little

Polynesia. girl had been the fruit of their union, and was at the breast when the Pandora arrived, seized the criminals, and secured them in irons on board the ship. Frantic with grief, the unhappy Peggy flew with her infant in a canoe to the arms of her husband. The interview was so affecting and afflicting, that the officers on board were overwhelmed with anguish, and Stewart himself, unable to bear the heart-rending scene, begged she might not be admitted again on board. She was separated from him by violence, and conveyed on shore in a state of despair and grief too big for utterance. Withheld from him, and forbidden to come any more on board, she sunk into the deepest dejection; it preyed on her vitals,—she lost all relish for food and life,—rejoiced no more,—pined under a rapid decay of two months, and fell a victim to her feelings, dying literally of a broken heart.

The Otaheitans are generous even to a fault; they seem to be utterly unable to resist importunities, and always ready to share their last morsel with their neighbours. Poverty is no reproach, but affluence with covetousness brings contempt on the owner. Should any one, indeed, refuse to share his property in cases of distress, the chances are that it will be destroyed, and his house pulled down over his head. The office of king is hereditary in one family; the chiefs resemble our ancient barons; under them are the vassals, and below them the villains, or labourers. The king and queen enjoy many privileges, one of which is, to be carried about every where on men's shoulders; and the reason of this is, that whatever soil they tread upon becomes sacred, and belongs to them; so also, if they enter a house, it is rendered sacred, and becomes their property. Their domestics and attendants are also raa, or sacred, and for thieving, plunder, and all manner of licentiousness, they are said to be the worst on the island.

In the Missionary Voyage is given an account of the ceremony of investing the new sovereign with the royal maro, when each chief of the island, amounting to nearly one hundred, brings one, two, or three human victims, to offer up on the occasion. They are brought before the sovereign in a lifeless state, having first been stoned to death, or knocked on the head with clubs. From each of these victims the priest scoops out an eye, and presents it to the king on a plantain-leaf, and the bodies are then carried away and interred in the Morai. The reason assigned for this oblation is, that the head being accounted sacred, and the eye the most precious part, it is presented to the king as the head and eye of the people. During the presentation the king holds his mouth open, as if devouring it, whereby it is imagined he receives additional wisdom and discernment. The royal maro, and the sacred canoes which brought the human sacrifices, are then deposited in the Morai. A series of feasts then begin, which continue for two months. These abominable rites, if not entirely abolished, have, in a great degree, ceased by the influence of the missionaries.

In their language and their deities may be traced their Hindoo origin; and, though their religion is a tissue of superstitions and brutal ceremonies, they never draw near to their Eatova with carelessness

and inattention. Captain Cook testifies to the decorous conduct of an Otaheitan on such occasions: "He is all devotion,—he approaches the place of worship with reverential awe,—uncovers when he treads on sacred ground, and prays with a fervour that would do honour to a better profession."

On the whole, the Otaheitans are not only the most advanced in civilization, but inhabit the fairest and most fertile island of Polynesia. Taking into account, as Captain Wilson says, its amenity, the salubrity of the climate, the plenty of fine water, spontaneous productions of the earth, the rich and most romantically picturesque appearances of the country, "he felt the justice of the title given to Otaheite by one of the navigators, as the 'Queen of Islands.'" The latest accounts received from the missionaries are most gratifying. One of them thus concludes: "Public immorality, drunkenness, and profane swearing, are unknown here. All their former sports and amusements are completely put down. Their morais are almost all demolished, and many of them completely obliterated; and it is a singular fact, that chapels now occupy the very ground on which many of them stood."

With such a people is the north-western extremity of the large group of islands, and the interesting offspring of the mutineers of the Bounty, who still preserve their religious habits and purity of manners, on the small island of Pitcairn, at the opposite extremity, a hope may be indulged that, in the course of half a century, civilization will have made a rapid progress, not only throughout the Friendly, Society, and King George Islands, but over a very considerable portion of Polynesia.

5. The Marquesas.—This cluster of islands was discovered by Alvarode Mendana in 1595, and named by him Las Marquesas de Mendoca, in honour of the Viceroy of Peru. Four only are described by Quiros the pilot, under the names of La Dominica, Santa Christina, San Pedro, and La Madalena. The Spaniards anchored in a port on Santa Christina, to which they gave the name of Madre de Dios, well protected from the trade-wind, and which has two excellent streams of fresh water flowing into it. The people are described as being an elegant race, the women in particular as remarkably beautiful, whose complexions and general appearance are said to excel those of the women of Lima. Their dress consisted of a cloth made of the leaves of a palm-tree, with which they were covered from the breast downwards; and so civilly disposed were they, that a beautiful native woman seated herself by the side of Donna Isabel, the wife of Mendana, and began to fan her. But the Spaniards, as usual, found means to quarrel with the natives, and to drive them with their fire-arms into the woods.

The produce of the island was hogs, fowls, fish, cocoa-nuts, sugar-canes, plantains, and the bread-fruit, described for the first time by the writer of this voyage.

Subsequent discoveries have made us nearly as well acquainted with the Marquesas as with Otaheite. Captain Cook visited them in 1774, and Captain Wilson in 1797. From these we know that they consist of eight islands in number, besides some smaller islands to the westward, which being seen by

Polynesia. an American master of the name of Ingraham, he called them Washington's Islands. They had previously been seen, however, by Marchand in 1789, and may fairly be grouped as part of the Marquesas. The centre of the group may be reckoned in about the latitude $9^\{\backslash circ\}\; 30\text{'}$ south, and longitude $139^\{\backslash circ\}\; 30\text{'}$ west.

Manners. The manners, the religious ceremonies, the marais, and the general appearance of the natives, are so similar to those of Otaheite, that a description of them would amount to little more than a repetition of what has been said. They have all the good qualities of the natives of that island, and most of their bad ones; but owing probably to a more restricted communication with strangers, a greater degree of simplicity was observable in their manners, on the first arrival of the missionaries among them, than in the people of Otaheite. Scarcely had they anchored in Resolution Bay (Madre de Dios), than two women, though dark, swam off to the ship, in the hope of meeting a favourable reception, calling out in a piteous tone, when they found they could not be admitted on board, "Waheené, waheené!" We are women, we are women. The next morning the visit was repeated, and is thus described in the Missionary Voyage.

"Our first visitors from the shore came early; they were seven beautiful young women, swimming quite naked, except a few green leaves tied round their middle; they kept playing round the ship for three hours, calling Waheené! until several of the native men had got on board; one of them, being the chief of the island, requested that his sister might be taken on board, which was complied with. She was of a fair complexion, inclining to a healthy yellow, with a tint of red in her cheek, was rather stout, but possessing such symmetry of features, as did all her companions, that as models for the statuary and painter their equals can seldom be found." Captain Wilson says, that an Otaheitan woman which they had on board was far eclipsed by the Marquesan woman; but she was shocked to see a woman quite naked walking the deck, and threw over her a dress of Otaheitan cloth; but as for the rest of these females, the goats, it seems, soon stripped them of their green leaves, and left them in a state of complete nudity. On shore the women clothe themselves in decent habits.

The Marquesans are so far superior to the Otaheitans, that they sacrifice hogs only to their deities, and never men. Their houses, canoes, their dress, and the cultivation of their land, are at least equal to those of Otaheite, and they have none of those infamous arroy societies. Captain Porter of the American frigate Essex, after brutally massacring a number of these people on the most frivolous pretext, charges them with cannibalism, though, from his own account, there does not appear the slightest ground for so injurious an imputation. To all unprejudiced navigators they have appeared as an amiable people, entertaining a great respect for old age, fond of their children instead of murdering them, as on Otaheite and some other islands, and living in

peace and harmony with each other, and with their families. Polynesia.

6. Easter Island.—This small island, not 30 miles in length, is only deserving of notice from its solitary position, its great distance from any of the islands of the Pacific, its comparative proximity to the coast of South America, and its being inhabited by a race of men who differ no more from the rest of the Polynesians than they do from each other; having the same language, the same features, the same religious notions, and Morais constructed as they generally are in other islands; on the platforms of which are erected shapeless and uncouth masses of stone, carved in imitation of the human bust, with rude faces four or five feet long, set on trunks of ten or twelve feet in height. Kotzebue, the last visitor to this island, looked, however, in vain for any traces of these statues on the spots where they are described by Cook and La Peyrouse.

This island is supposed to have been discovered by the Buccaneer Davis in 1687; though some have contended for the Dutch Admiral Roggewein being the discoverer, who gave it the name of Paaschen, or Easter Island, having first seen it on the day of that feast. Its latitude is $27^\{\backslash circ\}\; 5\text{'}$ south, and longitude $109^\{\backslash circ\}\; 46\text{'}$ west.

It is not remarkably fertile; few trees are found on it, and no running stream. The natives are very industrious in raising food for their support, which consists chiefly of bananas, taro-root, sugar-canes, sweet potatoes, and yams. By some navigators they are described as a very savage people, by others as a mild and amiable race:—the fact is, that their conduct has corresponded with the treatment they have received from strange visitors. Thus their decided hostility to Kotzebue, when he attempted to land on the island, was explained on his arrival at the Sandwich Islands. An American commanding a schooner called the Nancy from New London, had observed a vast multitude of seals on the shores of the small uninhabited island of Massafuero, to the westward of Juan Fernandez; and thinking it might turn out an excellent speculation, if a small establishment were formed on the island, to carry on the fishing, set about the means of carrying this project into effect. His own crew was but just sufficient to navigate the vessel, and there being no anchorage off the island, could not be spared to catch seals. The brutal wretch, therefore, proceeded to Easter Island, and landing at Cook's Bay, seized and carried off twelve men and ten women to people his new colony. For the first three days they were confined in irons, and were not released till fairly out of sight of land, when the first use they made of their liberty was to jump overboard, choosing rather to perish in the waves than to be carried away they knew not whether, or for what purpose; the women, who were with difficulty restrained from following them, were carried to Massafuero, but what ultimately became of these poor creatures M. Kotzebue does not relate. No wonder then that such base and inhuman practices should drive the natives to acts of hostility against all foreign intruders. (K.)

ARCHA
OF
POLYNESIA

OR GROUPTS OF ISLANDS

Spread over the

NORTH & SOUTH

Pacific Oceans

Between the Latitudes 30. N and 30. S
and Longitudes 110. W and 130. E.

ACCORD
OF
POLYNESIA
Spread over the
NORTH & SOUTH
Pacific Oceans
Between the Latitudes 36° N. and 60° S.
and Longitudes 180° W. and 150° W.

Map labels include:
- LUBONE ISLANDS (top left)
- SANDWICH ISLANDS (top right)
- NEW GUINEA (bottom left)
- FRIENDLY ISLANDS (bottom center)
- KING GEORGE ISLANDS (bottom right)
- MARQUESEAS (bottom right)
- EQUATOR (horizontal line across the middle)
- BOU (letters in the bottom left quadrant)

1810
A. DE MONTFORT
12, Rue de la Harpe
Paris

1810
A. DE MONTFORT
12, Rue de la Harpe
Paris

1810
A. DE MONTFORT
12, Rue de la Harpe
Paris