392 MYSTIC ISLES 



The chief pleaded that he could not explain such a 

 complicated matter in French, and if he did, M. Consi- 

 dine would not understand that language. But with 

 the question raised, the conversation continued about 

 infanticide and depopulation. The chief quoted the 

 death-sentence upon his race pronounced by the Tahi- 

 tian prophets centuries ago: 



"E tupu te fan, et toro te farero, e mou te taata!" 



"The hibiscus shall grow, the coral spread, and man shall cease !" 



"There were, according to Captain Cook, sixty or 

 seventy thousand Tahitians on this island when the 

 whites came," continued the chief, sadly. "That num- 

 ber may have been too great, for perhaps Tooti calcu- 

 lated the population of the whole island by the crowd 

 that always followed him, but there were several score 

 thousand. Now I can count the thousands on the fin- 

 gers of one hand." 



We talked of the sweeping away of the people of the 

 Marquesas Islands and of all the Polynesians. The Ha- 

 waiians are only twenty-two thousand. When the 

 haole set foot on shore there, he counted four hundred 

 thousand. 



Time was when so great was the congestion in these 

 islands, as in the Marquesas and Hawaii, that the priests 

 and chiefs instituted devices for checking it. Infanti- 

 cide seemed the easiest way to prevent hurtful increase. 

 Stringent rules w^ere made against large families. On 

 some islands couples were limited to two children or only 

 one, and all others born were killed immediately. Race 

 suicide had here its simplest form. The Polynesian 



