THE DYIJSTG OUT OF TEE POLYXESIAX RACES. 



251 



especially in Hawaii, and the staring white build- 

 ings which stud the coast are often little used, 

 except as landmarks for vessels at sea. 



In attempting to account for the depopulation 

 of Polynesia, various causes are assigned by 

 those who have considered the question : intem- 

 perance, immorality, infantile epidemics, and pul- 

 monary diseases. Some persons lay stress upon 

 one evil, some upon another, the most careful ob- 

 servers being the least ready with an answer. 

 Some suggestions seem fanciful enough : the 

 women ride too much upon horseback ; wearing 

 clothes produces susceptibility to sudden chills ; 

 and the peaceable habits of modern times cause 

 more accessible but less healthy localities to be 

 inhabited. Although these may all be true causes 

 of diminished population, all combined appear in- 

 adequate to account for the result. Disease and 

 intemperance of all sorts, combined with bad 

 ventilation, insufficient food, and a severe climate, 

 do not prevent the population of our large cities 

 from increasing. Why, then, should the Polyne- 

 sians succumb, whose climate is equable, whose 

 food is abundant, and who breathe the fresh 

 breezes from mountain and sea ? They are not 

 dispossessed of their lands or driven from their 

 hunting grounds like the red Indians and Aus- 

 tralian blacks. They own large tracts of fertile 

 soil, and foreigners are eager to pay good wages 

 to those who will work, scarcity of labor being 

 the main difficulty of sugar-cultivation in the 

 Sandwich Islands. The marked deficiency of 

 women among the Polynesians does not seem to 

 be due to female infanticide, and is of course un- 

 favorable to population ; but they are by no 

 means sterile, and pretty little brown children 

 usually swarm around the native dwellings, which 

 occur at distant intervals on the coast, or in the 

 interior. Why, then, is it that many of these 

 dwellings have been deserted, and that luxuriant 

 plantations of cocoanut-palms and bread-fruit trees 

 remain neglected ? The means of subsistence are 

 there, but those who should have gathered them 

 have vanished. The climate and products are 

 those of Ceylon, but where are the irrigated rice- 

 terraces, and populous villages hidden in a jungle 

 of fruit-bearing trees? One is reminded rather 

 of the barren glens of Sutherland, where bright- 

 green patches on the brown hill-sides mark the 

 site of what are still called " towns." 



Thus much is clear, however, that " civiliza- 

 tion" has introduced into Polynesia causes of 

 destruction more than counterbalancing the ad- 

 vantages of education and good government so 

 far as the natives are concerned. They are un- 



able, even under the most favorable conditions, 

 to resist evils which hardly affect the vitality and 

 fecundity of the Indo-European or Mongolian, 

 and those vices and diseases which merely scourge 

 the individual of the stronger race annihilate the 

 less prolific breed. 



AY hen they are all gone there will be addi- 

 tional space in the world for a few Caucasians 

 and a good many Mongolians, of whom there 

 seem to be quite enough already, and, no doubt, 

 the negro also would flourish and multiply in the 

 tropical islands. On the whole, humanity will 

 not profit greatly by the change. In frugality 

 and industry the Kanaka is far inferior to the 

 Chinaman, but not to the negro ; while courtesy, 

 courage, docility, and generosity, are not such 

 common qualities that we can witness without 

 regret the extinction of the Polynesians, who 

 exhibit them in so marked a degree. Depopula- 

 tion is not limited to Polynesia proper, but goes 

 on all over the southern hemisphere as rapidly 

 as in the kingdom of Haw r aii, the only important 

 insular group lying north of the equator in the 

 Pacific Ocean. In the Feejees, since their annexa- 

 tion, the mortality has been appalling, but these 

 islands are inhabited by Melanesians, a black 

 race, very different to the brown Kanakas. The 

 Tasmanian " black-fellow " is gone already, and 

 his Australian brother is rapidly following him. 

 We may pity even such irreclaimable savages as 

 these are, and regret the mode of their extermi- 

 nation, but we must admit that for them there is 

 no room within the pale of a truly civilized com- 

 munity, and that they are interesting only as 

 ethnological curiosities, exhibiting in recent times 

 a very early stage of human development. It will 

 not take long to write their epitaph, although, in 

 their keen love of sport and their invincible dis- 

 like of steady work, they bear a certain resem- 

 blance to some of the most exalted and highly- 

 favored classes of mankind. 



With the polished Hawaiian and the chival- 

 rous Maori it is different, and the loss caused to 

 humanity by their disappearance is real. Of 

 course, they are not without failings, and contact 

 with unworthy Europeans has not tended to di- 

 minish some of these, but they have learned, on 

 the other hand, from our people good lessons of 

 industry and thrift. Naturally, they have so lit- 

 tle notion of saving as to give away, or even 

 destroy, their surplus with reckless extrava- 

 gance ; but now a Maori capitalist is by no means 

 unknown, and I have seen in the interior of 

 Hawkes Bay and Wellington Provinces Maori 

 farms which would do credit to any white settler. 



