364 population. [1840. 



was computed that they contained at least two hundred 

 thousand inhabitants. Subsequent to that time a great part 

 of the population fell victims to the bloody and devastating 

 wars wajjed between the rival tribes and factions ; and even 

 after peace and harmony were restored by the benign influ- 

 ence of Christianity, who, with her twin sister Civilization, 

 dispensed innumerable blessings throughout the group, and 

 awakened new hopes and aspirations in the breasts of the 

 illiterate and benighted pagans, other causes contributed to 

 produce the same result — the rapid and alarming diminution 

 of the native population. Foreign diseases and vices have 

 been introduced, and have swept away their thousands. In- 

 fanticide, and the abandonment of children, have been almost 

 done away ; but in their stead, there has been a marked in- 

 difference to the welfare of their offspring manifested by the 

 natives of the islands, and every year witnesses the death of 

 a great number of infants, solely from the inattention and 

 neglect of their parents.* Superadded to this cause of the 

 reduction of the population, is the somewhat singular fact, 

 that sterility, occasioned either by indulgence in pernicious 

 habits and vices, or by the settled gloom and melancholy 

 that have taken possession of the Sandwich Islander, is un- 

 usually common. Both these causes combined must, of ne- 

 cessity, lead to the result which has been witnessed here, 

 among any people; if the species is not reproduced in suffi- 

 cient numbers to supply the inroads made by time, in the 

 ordinary course of nature, utter annihilation will be the in- 

 evitable consequence. 



In 1832, the population of the group was about one hun- 

 dred and thirty thousand ; in 1836, it had dwindled down to 

 about one hundred thousand ; and in the winter of 1849, it 

 was supposed not to exceed eighty thousand. Nearly one 

 half of the whole number reside on Hawaii. Ever since the 

 first settlement of the missionaries in the islands, the for- 

 eign population has been steadily increasing, and immi- 



* Cases of abortion are not rare in some districts, though they can hardly 

 be said to be of frequent occurrence in the group. 



