1832.] 
SOCIETY ISLANDS. 
431 
been located on the island, we cannot but feel, that the harvest 
has not been in proportion to the labours of the husbandmen. 
There are many causes which must ever render their advance- 
ment in civilization slow, and of doubtful issue. 
In the first place, they are happy in their own shady groves, 
and delight in their wild and unrestrained mode of hfe. Their 
geographical position is unfavourable to much foreign intercourse 
— an intercourse which, though strewing vices in its train, is 
nevertheless necessary to a people who would change from sav- 
age to civilized hfe. The island, however, is one of great inter- 
est ; and the time may come, when it will enter largely into the 
concerns of the Pacific. 
On Wednesday, September nineteenth, we unmoored ship, and 
made ready for sea ; and on the following day we bade farewell to 
Matavia Bay- — its lofty hills and shady groves, with their spirit- 
bewitching enchantments, and directed our course towards Val- 
paraiso, at which port we arrived on the twenty-third of Octoberj 
as stated in our introduction. 
