60 TAHITI AND EI MEO. 



ment they were all extremely civil, and said they only wished to look 

 at us, although some were disposed to feel us. 



Mr. Simpson led the way to his house, passing by a thick and 

 well-built stone wall, the only one which I had seen used as an 

 enclosure in these islands ; on my inquiring if it was the work of 

 native labour, I was informed that it had been erected by an Irish- 

 man, who is now the overseer of Mr. Simpson's sugar plantation. 

 This wall encloses a large lawn, with a number of fine bread-fruit 

 trees ; on each side of the walk was a row of low acacias, which were 

 at the time in full bloom, with flowers of many colours, yellow, 

 orange, red, and variegated; at the end of the walk was a low- 

 thatched white cottage. 



Mr. and Mrs. Simpson have the care of a school for the children 

 of missionaries and respectable white parents ; these are kept entirely 

 separate from the children of the natives ; the reason assigned for this 

 exclusiveness is, that the danger of the former receiving improper 

 ideas is such as to preclude their association with the latter. This 

 may be good policy as far as the white children are concerned, 

 although I doubt its having a good effect on their minds if they are 

 destined to spend their lives among the islands. The habit they will 

 thus acquire of looking upon the natives as their inferiors, cannot fail 

 to have an injurious influence on both. The exclusiveness is carried 

 so far, that the children of whites by native women, although they 

 are united in the relation of husband and wife, are not admitted into 

 these schools, because, as they say, they do not wish their children 

 to be contaminated by intercourse with such a mixture of blood. In 

 pursuance of the same policy they have, as it is said, procured the 

 enactment of a law prohibiting marriage between whites and the 

 natives. 



This, I must say, appeared to me the worst feature I had seen in 

 the missionary establishment. It is placed here for the avowed pur- 

 pose of reclaiming the natives from idolatry, and the vices which are 

 its concomitants. In doing this, their most successful efforts have 

 been in the conversion and moral improvement of the young; yet 

 they bring up their own children to look down upon them as beings 

 of an inferior order. In becoming acquainted with this feature, I no 

 longer wondered at the character, which I was compelled by a regard 

 for truth to give, of the children of missionary parents in Tahiti. 



The missionaries are now aware that their proper plan is to devote 



