288 TIIK TROPICiVL WORLD. 



which has long since ceased to believe in them, the rude 

 figures which the Tahiti an or the Hawaiian adored were models 

 of hideous deformity. 



Like the ancient Grreeks, the Polynesians had also their 

 Elysium. The higher gods, and the souls of kings, chiefs and 

 councillors, resided in a happy island, more beautiful than ^ny 

 on earth ; but the common people were excluded from this 

 abode of felicity, as they have been debarred from all political 

 rights in life. The idea of a retributive justice had no room 

 in the Polynesian mind, and birth claimed its privileges even 

 after death, while merit was ignored. 



To judge by their progress in the industrial arts, their ela- 

 borate political institutions, and the courtesy of their manners, 

 the South Sea Islander, particularly the Tahitians, might 

 claim a place among civilized nations, but in many respects 

 they were still deeply plunged in barbarism. Their wars were 

 sanguinary and cruel, their morals dissolute. Infanticide was 

 extremely common among them, and the cause of this horrible 

 crime was not the want of food but a culpable laziness. 

 Although the fertility of the soil and the mildness of a 

 delicious climate rendered it easy to provide for a large 

 family, the general indolence was so great that a man with 

 more than three children (a rare case) was looked* upon as 

 groaning under an intolerable burden, and thus thousands of 

 infants were immolated to the love of ease of their unnatural 

 parents. 



Human sacrifices were frequently offered to propitiate the 

 gods — in war time, on the occasion of some great festival, of 

 the illness or coronation of a king, or at the building of a 

 temple. Each of the pillars which sustained the roof of one of 

 these edifices was planted in the body of a wretch immolated in 

 honour of the cruel divinity to whom the building was con- 

 secrated. To the honour of Polynesian humanity it must, 

 however, be added, that the victims — either prisoners of 

 war or persons who had incurred the enmity of some priest or 

 noble — were not made to suffer any additional torment, but 

 nuddenly despatched by the unexpected blow of a club. 



In all the larger Polynesian groups the state of society 

 briefly described in the foregoing pages has long since dis- 

 appeared. 



