16 TAHITI. 



misjudging zeal, and have exhibited a want of practical knowledge of 

 human nature in their efforts, and in the solution of the difficult 

 problem of bringing barbarians to civilization, they ought to receive 

 due credit for what they have actually accomplished. I am decidedly 

 of opinion, that in spite of all the drawbacks I have mentioned, as 

 much would not have been done by any other class of persons. It has 

 demanded a sense of religious duty, to enable them to persevere in a 

 constant devotion to the cause in which they have embarked, to enable 

 them to undergo the privations and trials to which they have been 

 subjected, while continually at the mercy of uncivilized men. No 

 desire of pecuniary emolument has been evinced by them, nor are 

 they sustained by any expectation of temporal reward ; and I can 

 testify, from personal observation, that their position in a worldly 

 sense, is not to be envied. 



To judge of the amount of good they have accomplished, it is neces- 

 sary to turn back to the records of early voyages, and compare the 

 present with the former condition of these islanders. Now they are seen 

 enjoying peace, possessing a written instead of a mere oral language, 

 living under wholesome laws, and receiving the advantages of school 

 education and church discipline. In former times, we read of perpetual 

 intestine broils, of the worship of idols propitiated by human sacrifice, 

 of the depraved association of the Ariore, and its accompanying crime 

 of infanticide. In making this comparison, we cannot but acknowledge 

 that the persons who have effected these changes, are both Christians 

 and philanthropists, and that they have been reasonably successful in 

 implanting the principles of civilization. 



As a proof of the value of their labours, my experience warrants me 

 in saying that the natives of Tahiti are honest, well-behaved, and 

 obliging ; that no drunkenness or rioting is to be seen, except when 

 provoked by their white visiters and inmates, and that they are obe- 

 dient to the laws and to their rulers. That they should be compara- 

 tively indolent is natural, in a climate where the fruits of the earth 

 almost spontaneously supply the wants of nature, and where a mere 

 animal existence may be maintained without labour. No People are, in 

 truth, so independent of the aid even of their fellows as the Tahitians. 

 A native may in the morning be wholly destitute even of implements 

 wherewith to work, and before nightfall he may be found clothed, 

 lodged, and have all the necessaries of life around him in abundance. 

 These he derives from the cocoa-nut, the poorou (Hibiscus tiliaceus), 

 banana, bread-fruit, and bamboo. That he does not find it necessary 

 to call upon others for assistance, does not make him forget the duties 

 of hospitality, but it does produce a thoughtlessness about his own 



