418 NEW SOUTH WALES. [CHAP. xix. 



of Good Hope, and Australia, and we find the same result. Nor is 

 it the white man alone that thus acts the destroyer; the Polynesian 

 of Malay extraction has in parts of the East Indian archipelago, 

 thus driven before him the dark-coloured native. The varieties 

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

 species of animals the stronger always extirpating the 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 inexplicable reduction of the 

 population in the beautiful 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 increased ; for infanticide, 

 which formerly prevailed to so extraordinary a degree, has ceased, 

 profligacy has greatly diminished, and the murderous wars become 

 less frequent. 



The Eev. J. Williams, in his interesting work,* says, that the 

 first intercourse between natives and Europeans, "is invariably 

 attended with the introduction of fever, dysentery, or some other 

 disease, which 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 this fact 



* 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. Macculloch 

 (Western Isles, vol. ii. p. 32) says, " It is asserted, that on the arrival of a 

 .stranger (at St. Kilda) all the inhabitants, in the common phraseology, 

 catch a cold." Dr. Macculloch considers the whole case, although often 

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

 Avas 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 universally 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, that the great epidemics 

 at Panama and Callao are " marked " by the arrival of ships from Chile, 

 because the people from that temperate region, first experience the fatal 

 effects of the torrid zones. I may add, that I have heard it stated in 

 Shropshire, that sheep, which have been imported from vessels, although 

 themselves in a healthy condition, if placed in the same fold with others, 

 frequently produce sickness in the flock. 



