THE PROBLEM OF MELANESIA. 6 



Sensitive natures have counted the world well lost for the enjoyment 

 of its delights; ignorant men have yielded to the same compulsion 

 and have found dingy pleasure in settling down as beachcombers. 

 The great nations have sent brave fleets to the exploration of these 

 islands, have lent their most competent administrators to foster the 

 states of island monarchs. The people have won those who came to 

 seek them; they have been treated as gentlefolk. 



But Melanesia is a volume whose chapters are horror upon horror. 

 The islands of this western area lack the charm which holds the eye 

 upon the atoll with its palm tiara or upon the towering summits 

 forest-clad and necklaced with cascades so familiar in the Polynesian 

 scene. The people of Melanesia have an aspect more savage than 

 the statuesque dignity of the Polynesian. It does no violence to 

 the sense of the fitness of things to look upon them as a servile crew. 

 It was only upon the score of our morals, not of social propriety, 

 that objection was raised to the labor trade in Melanesia, a form 

 of slavery to which the Polynesian never was subjected. Explorers 

 in Melanesia have relatively been few. Missionary endeavor was 

 slow to attack this field of crying need, and when the missions did 

 effect a lodgment in this dark region of the sea the pioneers were 

 members of a sect which affected repugnance toward all matters 

 which make solely for broader culture. From many the crown of 

 martyrdom was not withheld. Yet that blessing was, after all, indi- 

 vidual; we compare the information derived from the Melanesian 

 missionaries with the treasures of scholarship which mark the work 

 of their fellows in Polynesia, and we deplore the comparison. 



Of such sort are the reasons wherewith we must account to our- 

 selves for the fact that Melanesia yet remains to the student almost 

 wholly in darkness and gross darkness upon the people, and that 

 the light which here and there in a random ray has been shed upon 

 its problems must first be subjected to close analysis. 



In the early lines of this chapter use has been made of the term 

 inosculation of the Melanesian and Polynesian tongues. It is now 

 in order to define the nature of the approximation of these two 

 language series within the Melanesian area. 



We have first the several islands wholly or principally inhabited 

 by folk of Polynesian race and speech, yet lying within the region 

 which geographically is classed as Melanesia. Such, among others 

 in a short list, are Aniwa and Fotuna,* Sikayana, Ticopia, Liueniua,t 



*This spelling having been in some general use, I find it a convenient means of 

 differentiation from the Futuna of Nuclear Polynesia. 



f "The name of this atoll as given on the chart is Leueaeuwa, but the name, I think, 

 is wrongly spelled, as it bears no meaning that I know of in any Polynesian language. 

 The proper spelling is Le ua Niua. This was certainly the way in which I wrote it 

 before I knew of the other spelling, and the Samoan who was with me also spelled it in 

 the same way." The Rev. G. Brown, D. D., "Reports of the Australasian Association 

 for the Advancement of Science," IX, 258. 



