CHAP. II.] 13 



CHAPTER II. 



Diseases of the Natives. 



BEFORE these people became acquainted with Euro- 

 peans they were uniformly healthy, if we may trust 

 their own accounts, and those of the earliest navi- 

 gators who visited them. Their first visitors de- 

 scribe them as possessed of that energy of frame and 

 exuberance of health and animal spirits which we may 

 always expect to find where a people are untainted 

 by the evils which seem to be the necessary com- 

 panions of civilization ; where they are living in a 

 moderate, although invigorating, climate ; where 

 they are not suffering from actual want ; and where 

 they are forced to satisfy their necessities by the 

 exercise of their physical and mental powers. It 

 would have been contrary to the laws of nature for 

 them to have been entirely free from illness ; but 

 their diseases were those of an inflammatory and epi- 

 demic character. Amongst the tribes of the east 

 coast I found a tradition, that "shortly before the 

 time of Cook a fatal epidemic broke out in the 

 northern parts of the island, and that its victims 

 were so numerous that they could not bury them, 



