KAUAIANDOAHU. 67 



theatre rich in foUage, and with rills of water coursing down them in 

 every direction. 



The water of this stream is used by the natives to irrigate their 

 taro-patches, and the soil of the valley is exceedingly fertile, pro- 

 ducing sweet-potatoes, pumpkins, cabbages, beans, &c. The whole 

 district is almost entirely supplied with food from the Hanapepe and 

 Waimea valleys, which occasions the population for the most part to 

 centre in these two places : throughout the remainder of the island, 

 the huts and inhabitants are but sparsely scattered. 



The district of Hanapepe forms a mission station, and is under the 

 care of the Rev. Samuel Whitney. He states the population in 183S 

 to have been 3272. Mr. Whitney informed me, that for some years 

 past he has kept a register of births and deaths, which shows that the 

 latter is to the former as three to one. Other late authorities make 

 the decrease in this district as eight to one for several years ; but a 

 resident of such standing as Mr. Whitney must be reckoned the 

 best authority. 



Mr. Whitney imputes this rapid decrease to former vicious habits, 

 and both native and foreign authorities attribute the introduction of 

 the venereal to the visit of Cook. This infection, brought to these 

 islands by the first voyagers, may now be said to pervade the whole 

 population, and has reduced the natives to a morbid sickly state : 

 many of the women are incapable of child-bearing, and of the 

 children who are born only a few live to come to maturity. 



Mr. Whitney assigns as another cause of the decrease in the 

 population, the recklessness of human life, brought about by the 

 despotic government under which they have been living, which has 

 destroyed all motives to enterprise and industry, rendered precarious 

 the blessings of life, and produced a corresponding recklessness as 

 to the future. Much of the sickness is owing to over-eating and 

 irregularity in meals; for the inhabitants fast sometimes for days 

 together, and then gormandize to the greatest excess. 



There has been no case of infanticide, to Mr. Whitney's knowledge, 

 during- the last ten vears, and he does not believe that the law inter- 

 dieting sexual intercourse is promotive of this crime ; for from all his 

 inqiiiries, he has not been able to learn a single fact that will tend to 

 warrant such a conclusion : on the contrary, he thiiaks that the law 

 in question has rather acted to prevent its commission. 



Intoxication certainly forms no part of the cause of diseases, for Mr. 

 Whitney bears testimony, that he has not known six cases of intoxi- 



