266 Report of a Journey Around the World. 



her kapa-beaters, and all other relics of her ancient individuality; 

 she stills holds to her national food poi , but the implements are no 

 longer made in the olden way, and most of the actual manufacture 

 of the food is by the industrious Chinese or by the machines of the 

 foreigner. Samoa makes but little siapo (kapa) and that of poor 

 quality to sell to tourists (often in Honolulu as of Hawaiian make) . 

 The Marquesans have long ago given up the native manufa(5lures 

 so chara(5leristic, and like the Hawaiians are fast passing away; 

 the Society Islands, Tonga, and indeed all the south-eastern Pacific 

 march in the same procession ; New Zealand alone clings to the 

 poor remnants of her fine ancient work. And the passing of the 

 Primitive Age is by no means confined to Polynesia. The mission- 

 ary of the gospel or of commerce has penetrated all the islands of 

 the Great Ocean in spite of the cannibalistic proclivities that for a 

 while formed a barrier to their impertineucies, and from Rapanui 

 to the end of Dutch New Guinea all that made the interesting in- 

 habitants a peculiar people is vanishing before the inroads of the 

 white invader if not with the speed of the dew before the sun, yet 

 with a rapidity which is no less than appalling to the ethnologist. 

 Where are the sculptors of the gigantic images of Rapanui ; where 

 the builders of the trilithon on Tonga ; where the carvers of the 

 Marquesas and their artistic tatuers ; where the artistic beaters 

 and ornamenters of kapa and the deft weavers of mats and baskets 

 on Hawaii? I need not describe what a so-called civilization has 

 put in the place of the ancient workers; ethnologists know, or if 

 they do not then are they the happier for their ignorance. 



As is well known to the Trustees of this museum, and to many 

 others, the Director of this museum planned some years ago an 

 exploration of the Pacific islands on a large scale, and a statement 

 of this was printed and sent to many scientific men and to prominent 

 universities and societies ; owing to an intervention that need not 

 be mentioned here, this plan, so far as the museum was concerned,, 

 was withdrawn, but the note of warning then sounded caused not 

 a few of the wiser societies to make portions of the desired explora- 

 tion in various parts of the Pacific, especially in the western and 

 south-eastern regions, and the results while generall}' good, all con- 

 firm what has been said above, that the harvest has been gathered; 

 only the gleanings remain. [414] 



