CORAL ISLANDERS. • 289 



In Hawaii, Tahiti, Tonga, and Samoa, the ancient religion, 

 the ancient customs, the ancient manufactures have more or 

 less given way to European influences, and now only exist in 

 the more remote or more insignificant islands where the 

 missionary has either not appeared or which are too poor to 

 tempt our avarice. 



The difference between the geological structure of the 

 different islands of the Pacific has a marked influence upon the 

 condition of their inhabitants. In the high and more extensive 

 islands, where the structure is primitive and volcanic, the 

 productions of the soil are more abundant and various, and the 

 conditions for social development more favourable, than in the 

 low small islands of a coralline structure, where food is less 

 abundant, the sun more scorching, and generally the complexion 

 of the inhabitants darker. 



While the Tahitians, Sandwich Islanders, Samoans, and 

 Fijians cultivate the taro plant or pluck the fruits of the bread- 

 fruit tree, the coral islander is frequently restricted to the 

 nuts of the cocoa palm, or even to those of the screw pine, and 

 adds to his sparing vegetable meal only a few crabs or fishes 

 which he gathers on the reef or catches in the lagoon. 



On some of the low Caroline Islands, whose inhabitants 

 undertake long sea voyages, the ideas of the people have 

 naturally a somewhat wider range ; but in general the poverty 

 of the language corresponds with the narrow circle of a life 

 confined to so small a space and to so few objects of interest. 



The inhabitants of Hau or Bow Island, situated in the centre 

 of the extensive Paumotu group, give us a good idea of the 

 dreary monotony of a coral islander's life. Captain Beechey, 

 who visited them in 1826, describes them as an ill-favoured, 

 indolent race, above the middle size, with strong bones but 

 flaccid muscles. The ugliness of the men was surpassed by 

 that of the women, who were obliged to work in the hot sun 

 while their lazy lords and masters looked on, reclining in the 

 shade. Having obtained the chief's permission to fell some 

 wood, he endeavoured to procure the natives' assistance by 

 liberal offers of tobacco and shirts, but in spite of this tempting 

 salary the chief was the only man among them who could be 

 roused from his lethargy and induced to work, and even he let 

 the axe drop before the first tree was felled. 



TJ 



