G8 Of the Checks to Population in Bk. i. 



I cannot so clearly and concisely describe the 

 precise aim of the first part of the present work, 

 as by saying that it is an endeavour to answer 

 this question so applied. 



Of the large islands of New Guinea, New Bri- 

 tain, New Caledonia, and the New Hebrides, 

 little is known with certainty. The state of so- 

 ciety in them is probably very similar to that 

 which prevails among many of the savage nations 

 of America. They appear to be inhabited by a 

 number of different tribes, who are engaged in fre- 

 quent hostilities with each other. The chiefs have 

 little authority ; and private property being in con- 

 sequence insecure, provisions have been rarely 

 found on them in abundance.* With the large 

 island of New Zealand we are better acquainted ; 

 but not in a manner to give us a favourable im- 

 pression of the state of society among its inhabi- 

 tants. The picture of it, drawn by Captain Cook 

 in his three different Voyages, contains some of 

 the darkest shades that are any where to be met 

 with in the history of human nature. The state of 

 perpetual hostility, in which the different tribes 

 of these people live with each other, seems to be 

 even more striking than among the savages of any 

 part of America y\ and their custom of eating 

 human flesh, and even their relish for that kind of 



* See the different accounts of New Guinea and New Britain, 

 in the Histoire des Navigations aux terres Aust rales ; and of New 

 Caledouia and the New Hebrides in Cook's Second Voyage, vol. 

 ii. b. iii. 



f Cook's First Voyage, vol. ii. p. 345. Secoud Voyage, vol. i. p. 

 101. Third Voyage, vol. i. p. 1 G ! , &c. 



