276 AUSTEALASIA. 



Exposed during the so-called dry season from October to May to the regular 

 north-east trade winds, the Marianas receive their most abundant rains from the 

 moist south-west currents, which prevail during the four summer months from 

 June to September. But moisture is precipitated at all times, and the streams are 

 everywhere copious except where absorbed by the porous calcareous soil and volcanic 

 scoriœ. The destruction of the forests has also reduced the rainfall and rendered 

 the freshets more sudden and the droughts more protracted. 



The indigenous flora, consisting chiefly of Asiatic species, has mostly disap- 

 peared, and the present vegetation has been mainly introduced by man in recent 

 times. Here, as in most tropical islands, the prevailing forms are the cocoa-nut 

 palm and the rima, or bread tree. The only indigenous mammal is the large 

 " Keraudren " bat, the flesh of which is eaten by the natives, notwithstanding its 

 disagreeable odour. There are but few species of birds, and the paroquets, so 

 richly represented in the Moluccas, are totally absent. Even insects are rare, and 

 the reptile order is limited to a few kinds of lizards and a single species of 

 serpent. 



"When first visited by Europeans the archipelago was found to contain a 

 considerable population. The Chamorros, unjustly stigmatised by Magellan as 

 Ladrones, or robbers, appear to have been akin to the Tagals at least in speech ; 

 but the physical appearance of their few descendants would lead to the supposition 

 that the aborigines were a half-caste Indonesian and Papuan race. These two 

 elements may have been represented by the two distinct classes of nobles and 

 people, between whom marriage and even contact were forbidden. But however 

 this be, the Spanish conquest ended by reducing all alike to a common state of 

 servitude. 



Long after the occupation of the archipelago the Chamorros continued to 

 hold out valiantly against the oppressive measures of the authorities, and when all 

 resistance ceased towards the end of the seventeenth century, it was found that of 

 the fifty thousand or sixty thousand natives more than half had perished or 

 escaped to the Caroline Islands ; over two-thirds of the 180 villages had fallen 

 to ruins. Then came the epidemics, which swept away most of the natives 

 of Guam, and when they were replaced by compulsory immigration from Tinian 

 nearly all the new arrivals perished of inanition : Tinian had been entirely depopu- 

 lated without any advantage to Guam. 



In 1760 the population of the Marianas had been reduced to 1,654 souls, 

 and it was then that recourse was had to Tagal-colonists from the Philippines, 

 who absorbed most of the surviving aborigines. In 1875 not more than six 

 hundred in a total population of nearly nine thousand were regarded as of more 

 or less pure Chamorro stock. In Guam are concentrated six- sevenths of all the 

 inhabitants, who have steadily increased since the outbreak of measles in 1856. 

 The northern islands are occupied only by a few families engaged in fishing ; 

 Tinian has only a single village and a community of lepers ; Rota and Sayan 

 have each not more than a few hundred souls. 



The natives of the Marianas have fallen ofp in culture as well as in numbers ; 



