492 COMPENDIUM OF GEOGRAPHY AND TRAVEL 
the body looks as if covered with a close-fitting garment 
of delicate lacework. 
These people show how far they have advanced be¬ 
yond the .savage state in nothing more than in their 
treatment of women, who are no longer beasts of burden 
or slaves, as among all Melanesian and many Malay 
tribes, but companions and equals, carefully protected 
from severe labour or anything that might impair their 
grace and beauty. The Polynesian women devote them¬ 
selves solely to household work, making mats and tapa 
cloth, and plaiting ornamental baskets, and they engage 
only in such light out-door employments as fruit-gathering 
and fishing, which in their delightful climate is pastime 
rather than labour. 
The Polynesians have for the most part a regular 
government of chiefs, and a rude religion kept up by 
priests as the interpreters of the will of their numerous 
gods, to whose honour lofty temples were raised on 
mounds of earth. They are warlike, but have none of 
the savage thirst for blood of the Fijians. They are 
great orators and undaunted sailors. Their ceremonies 
are polluted by no human sacrifices; cannibalism with 
them has never become a habit; they are kind and 
attentive to the sick and aged, and unlimited hospitality 
is everywhere practised. The chiefs work as well as the 
common people, and think it a disgrace if they do not 
excel in all departments of labour. When first visited 
by Europeans the people appear to have been remarkably 
healthy, and the islands were very populous. Captain 
Cook estimated that the Society Islands then possessed 
1700 war-canoes, manned by 68,000 men. Now, the 
total population of the group is believed to be about 
15,000 only ! Such has been the effect of contact with 
European civilisation on a people declared by our great 
