fruit, men engaged in battle, in the manual exercise, triumphing over a fallen foe; or, as I have frequently seen it, they are represented as carrying a human sacrifice to the temple. Every kind of animal-goats, dogs, fowls, and fish-may at times be seen on this part of the body; muskets, swords, pistols, clubs, spears, and other weapons of war, are also stamped upon their arms or chest."

Since the introduction of Christianity and the general adoption of clothing, more or less after the European fashion, the practice of tatauing has very nearly died out in the more civilised groups of islands, and is now justly regarded as a symbol of barbarism.

For twelve weary months Mr Crook toiled incessantly to reclaim the Marquesas natives from their savage practices, but without the slightest apparent effect. He was accordingly removed for a time to a more grateful sphere of utility; but in 1825 he returned with teachers from Huahine and Tahiti, and was kindly received by his old acquaintances. It then became evident that his former teachings and sufferings had not been altogether wasted. In some districts the idols had been destroyed, and here and there individuals seemed disposed to turn from their old abominations and seek a purer life. These, however, were only exceptional cases, for a vast majority of the population adhered with tenacity to their vicious and disorderly usages. Mr Crook remained a month in Tahuata, and on his departure prevailed upon a chief to take the Christian teachers under his protection. More than once, however, they were threatened with death and the oven, and after a valiant struggle with the powers of darkness were compelled to retire from the field.

Another attempt having been made with like ill-success,

Messrs Pritchard and Simpson proceeded thither in 1829, in the hope that the superior knowledge and energy of Europeans would in the end conquer the resistance of even the worst barbarians. They were soon undeceived. The scenes they witnessed, and the words they heard, speedily convinced them that the path must be cleared by native pioneers before European missionaries could have any chance of success. Two native teachers were therefore left, but only to be removed two years later. And yet the chiefs have always of late seemed anxious to live on friendly terms with the white men, and, if closely watched, have conducted trade operations in a satisfactory manner, their object, no doubt, being simply to obtain firearms and ammunition, and objects of direct practical utility. For morality and religion they care nothing, and obstinately refuse to pay any heed to words of instruction and warning.

A more cheering prospect, indeed, was afforded in Fatuhiva, or La Madalena, where the people as well as the chiefs requested Mr Darling in 1831 to station some teachers on their island, promising to treat them well and to listen to their counsels. Two native missionaries thereupon volunteered to take up their abode on this spot, and were received with kindness and respect. No great progress, however, was made by them, nor do they appear to have succeeded in breaking down any of the old pernicious customs. An American mission has also failed as egregiously as their English brethren, and the Marquesans continue to enjoy a bad pre-eminence among the eastern Polynesians for violence, licentiousness, and perhaps cannibalism.

Missionary enterprise has proved somewhat more success

ful in dealing with the inhabitants of the Low or Dangerous Archipelago, clusters of coral islands almost on a level with the sea, and known to their own inhabitants by the name of Paumotus. Comparatively few are inhabited, and until very recently cannibalism and many other atrocious usages largely prevailed. Every individual had his own particular deity, symbolised by a piece of wood or bone with a lock of human hair passed through it. These idols were suspended from trees round each house, and were invoked with simple rites until they incurred the displeasure of their worshippers, when they were ignominiously flung aside and others substituted in their place. Gradually these rude savages were brought to listen to native Christians from other islands, some of whom visited them intentionally, while others were driven to their low-lying shores by stress of weather. At present they profess the "new religion" after a fashion, and readily attend chapels and schoolrooms. Their morals, too, have notably improved, and their anthropophagous propensities appear to have been subdued. In other respects they can hardly be said as yet to have crossed the threshold of civilisation, and years will probably elapse before their intelligence becomes sufficiently developed to enable them to prefer right to wrong, purity to impurity, virtue to vice.

CHAPTER XII.

THE SANDWICH ISLANDS.

Sandwich Islands discovered by Captain Cook-His second visit and death-Hawaii, or Owhyhee-Maui-Tahurawe-Morokini

Ranai- Morokai - Oahu - Tauai - Nihau-Taura-Rise of Tamehameha-Infanticide-Human sacrifices-SorceryArrival of American missionaries-Tabu-Idolatry and the tabu abolished by Rihoriho-Introduction of a spurious civilisation-Foreign vagabonds-Hopeful results.

On the 8th of December 1777, Captain Cook sailed from the Society Islands with the hope of returning to England after rounding the northern coast of America. The first land he beheld was a small island, which he named, after the day on which it was sighted, Christmas Island. Here he remained till the 2d of January 1778, engaged in watching a solar eclipse, while the junior officers and the men were more practically employed in catching turtle. Resuming his voyage, he fell in, sixteen days later, with five islands, which he called, collectively, after the Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty. Their native appellations he gives as Atooi, Oneeheow, Woahoo, Oreehoua, and Tahoora, though more correctly rendered by the missionaries as Tauai, Nihau, Oahu, Tahurawe, and Taura. The gentleness and simplicity of the islanders made a favourable impression upon the great navigator, though he was pained by the discovery that they fed upon the bodies of slaughtered enemies.

Cook's Fatal Indiscretion.

167

Frustrated in his attempt to reach Europe by a northeast passage round America, Captain Cook returned, in an evil hour, to this group, and, ignorant of his fate, congratulated himself on a disappointment to which he was indebted for revisiting the Sandwich Islands, and for enriching his voyage with a discovery, in many respects, the most important that has been made by Europeans in the Pacific Ocean. He was, indeed, agreeably surprised to find that the group actually consisted of ten islands, instead of only five, as he originally imagined, while the conduct of the people was not only friendly, but reverential. In fact, they supposed he had come among them as an incarnation of their god Rono, or Orono, and accordingly worshipped him as a divine being, covering his shoulders with red cloth, prostrating themselves on the ground before him, and offering to him sacrifices of hogs and presents of fish, fruit, and vegetables. How a man of his intelligence and general rectitude could have failed to see, or, seeing, to reprove the erroneous conceptions of these ignorant barbarians, is one of those problems which are as painful as they are difficult to solve. He paid for his indiscretion with his life, but his death exposed the Sandwich Islanders, somewhat unfairly, to the charge of being more than ordinarily cruel, treacherous, and bloodthirsty. If no better, they are at least no worse than the inhabitants of the more southerly clusters, and whom, in their imitation of European civilisation, they have already far outstripped.

Ten islands, of which two are only occasionally frequented by fishermen and collectors of the eggs of sea-fowl, constitute the scattered cluster known as the Sandwich Islands. By the natives they are called Hawaii-more familiar to Europeans by its corrupted name Owhyhee-Oahu, Maui,