A Remarkable Example of Decline. 



that the ultimate fate of the Kanaka in all those 

 parts is to be swallowed up. 



As soon as the freedom of the natives was 

 signed away, they were given to understand by 

 the missionaries that they were now British 

 subjects, and that polygamy was illegal. 



The first thing they did, therefore, was to 

 annul all the old polygamous marriages, and dis- 

 tribute the women amongst all sorts and con- 

 ditions of men. 



No doubt the missionaries thought they were 

 doing quite right in this matter, but I ask, was 

 it not a monstrous thing that they should have 

 been allowed a free hand in matters of such 

 vital importance as the breaking up of homes, 

 and systems, without any other apparent means 

 of discrimination than their religious zeal ? 



The Fijians had a system of domestic regula- 

 tion that was truly marvellous, considering the 

 state of savagery in which we found them. One 

 might imagine that they had had some of the 

 knowledge of ancient Greece, so similar were 

 their customs of separating the sexes, public 

 sleeping bures, and propagating the race from 

 the best stock, etc. Plato himself could scarcely 

 have improved on the system. Would that there 

 had been a Plato, or a Lycurgus, in the place of 

 those missionaries ! 



Their action, in the breaking up of those 

 homes, was irremediable. When the mothers 

 were dispersed, those young virgins, who had 

 been so jealously guarded by them, were dis- 

 persed also, and there were not wanting those 

 (not only natives), ready to take advantage of 



G i 61 



