OTAHEfTE AND ITS CIVILIZERS. 
305 
yet invented; capital is only a precaution against misery, and can- 
not consequently exist where misery is unknown. 
Equilibrium of temperature, absence of prejudices and of capi- 
tal, rich and prodigal nature, nearly all this has been found again, 
alas ! in that Cythera of Oceanica, which Bougainville discovered 
not a century ago. Tahiti then still offered us a picture of the 
manners of half Edenism, period of transition from pure Edenisrn 
to the savage state, a mixed period, when man still enjoys the 
right of carelessness, where they still love each other a good deal, 
but where they already begin to eat one another a little, and to 
employ energetic means against the excess of population. At 
Tahiti, also, the men were of noble stature, and the women al- 
ways beautiful. 
The civilizees of Europe have already spoiled for us these for- 
tunate isles, which inspired in Rousseau such touching sympathies. 
They have introduced there their bible and their morality, and in 
less than eighty years the population of Tahiti has decreased from 
150,000 souls down to.10,000 — disease has replaced health, anx- 
iety, carelessness ; separated property, that of the tribe ; and their 
noble stature, and the beauty of their w^omen has undergone an 
analogous degeneration. Yet another half century of English 
puritan rule, and the poetic race of the Cytherians of Oceanica is 
lost. Poor race ! it is said that its pitiless persecutors have odi- 
ously exploited its weaknesses ; for example, that they have for- 
bidden them, under penalty of a fine, to love between the rising 
and the setting of the sun, and that with the product of these 
fines they have obtained the execution of gigantic works. 
Poor race! for its executioners have not been contented to tear 
it from carelessness and love, they have slandered it, they have 
accused it of profound immorality and invincible proclivity to 
Iheft. To theft ! as if theft could obtain where there is not even 
die idea of property 1 as if those enticing syrens that advanced 
iiwimming before the squadron of the navigator, and tore the nails 
Tom the hull of vessels to make themselves collars, had ever 
bought of wronging any one! As if they had not always been 
■disposed to cede generously in exchange for these vile copper 
nails all that belonged to them 1 
