492 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 



the body looks as if covered with a close-fitting garment 

 of delicate lacework. 



These people show how far they have advanced be- 

 yond the savage state in nothing more than in their 

 treatment of women, who are no longer beasts of burden 

 or slaves, as among all Melanesian and many Malay 

 tribes, but companions and equals, carefully protected 

 from severe labour or anything that might impair their 

 grace and beauty. The Polynesian women devote them- 

 selves solely to household work, making mats and ta^a 

 cloth, and plaiting ornamental baskets, and they engage 

 only in such light out-door employments as fruit-gathering 

 and fishing, which in their delightful climate is pastime 

 rather than labour. 



The Polynesians have for the most part a regular 

 government of chiefs, and a rude religion kept up by 

 priests as the interpreters of the will of their numerous 

 gods, to whose honour lofty temples were raised on 

 mounds of earth. They are warlike, but have none of 

 the savage thirst for blood of the Fijians. They are 

 great orators and undaunted sailors. Their ceremonies 

 are polluted by no human sacrifices ; cannibalism with 

 them has never become a habit ; they are kind and 

 attentive to the sick and aged, and unlimited hospitality 

 is everywhere practised. The chiefs work as well as the 

 common people, and think it a disgrace if they do not 

 excel in all departments of labour. When first visited 

 by Europeans the people appear to have been remarkably 

 healthy, and the islands were very populous. Captain 

 Cook estimated that the Society Islands then possessed 

 1700 war-canoes, manned by 68,000 men. Now, the 

 total population of the group is believed to be about 

 15,000 only! Such has been the effect of contact with 

 European civilisation on a people declared by our great 



