220 NEW SOUTH wales. 



man seem to act on each other in the same way as 

 different species of animals — the stronger always 

 extirpating tlie weaker. It was melancholy at New 

 Zealand to hear the fine, energetic natives saying 

 that they knew the land was doomed to pass from 

 their children. Every one has heard of the inex- 

 plicable reduction of the population in the beauti- 

 ful and healthy island of Tahiti since the date of 

 Captain Cook's voyages, although in that case we 

 might have expected that it would have been in- 

 creased ; for infanticide, which formerly prevailed 

 to so extraordinary a degree, has ceased, profligacy 

 has greatly diminished, and the murderous wars 

 become less frequent. 



The Rev. J. Williams, in his interesting work,* 

 says, that the first intercourse between natives and 

 Europeans "is invariably attended with the intro- 

 duction of fever, dysentery, or some other disease, 

 Avhich carries off numbers of the people." Again 

 he affirms, " It is certainly a fact, which cannot be 

 controverted, that most of the diseases which have 

 raged in the islands during my residence there 

 have been introduced by ships ;t and what renders 



* Narrative of Missionary Enterprise, p. 282. 



t Captain Beechey (chap, iv., vol. i.) states that the inhabitants 

 of Pitcairn Island are firmly convinced that after the arrival of 

 every ship they suffer cutaneous and other disorders. Captain 

 Beechey attributes this to the change of diet during the time of the 

 visit. Dr. MaccuUoch (Western Isles, vol. ii., p. 32) says, " It is 

 asserted, that on the arrival of a stranger (at St. Kilda) all the in- 

 habitants, in the common phraseology, catch a cold." Dr. Mac- 

 cuUoch considers the whole case, although often previously 

 affirmed, as ludicrous. He adds, however, that " the question 

 was put by us to the inhabitants, who unanimously agreed in the 

 story." In Vancouver's Voyage, there is a somewhat similar 

 statement with respect to Otaheite. Dr. Dieffenbach, in a note 

 to his translation of this Journal, states that the same fact is uni- 

 versally believed by the inhabitants of the Chatham Islands, and 

 in parts of New Zealand. It is impossible that such a belief 

 should have become universal in the northern hemisphere, at the 

 Antipodes, and in the Pacific, without some good foundation. 

 Humboldt (Polit. Essay on King, of New Spain, vol. iv.) says, 



