24 
Wild Life in Southern Seas. 
Take Funafuti and its people as a fair type 
of the other islands of the group, save Nui—of 
which more anon. Sixty or seventy years ago, 
so the American whaleship captains of those 
days said, there were three thousand people in 
the thirty and odd islets. Then, for the next 
thirty years, unknown and terrible diseases, 
introduced by the white men, ravaged not 
Funafuti alone, but the whole group, and 
where there were once thousands, only hun¬ 
dreds could be counted ; and until about i860 
it looked as if the total extinction of the whole 
race was but a matter of another decade. But, 
fortunately, such was not the case. In 1870 
the writer counted 160 people; in 1882 they 
had increased to nearly 200 ; and now, through 
better means of intercourse with the people of 
the other islands of the group, which has 
brought about a consequent and rapid inter¬ 
marriage, the people of Funafuti number over 
500, and show a gradual but steady increase. 
Oaitupu (literally “ the fountain of water ”) 
is, although nearly the smallest, the most thickly 
populated of all the Ellices. It has no lagoon 
accessible from the sea, and even landing is not 
always easy. Here, although the soil is better 
