462 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
prise was not less than theirs, our satisfaction was more 
chastened 3 for, notwithstanding we had succeeded so 
well in our first attempt, we considered it more the 
result of accident than skill, and were by no means 
confident that, in a second effort, we should be equally 
successful. 
We were, however, sufficiently encouraged to recom¬ 
mend the people, notwithstanding their disappointment 
in regard to the cotton, to direct their attention to the 
culture of sugar, since they had no longer any cause to 
doubt the practicability of procuring, from their re¬ 
spective plantations, sugar for their own use, or for 
barter with shipping. Our advice was not unheeded; 
several of the chiefs were induced to cultivate the cane; 
the mill we had erected became a kind of public 
machine, to which they brought their produce; and 
although, in some instances, we failed in procuring 
good sugar, in time the people were so well acquainted 
with the process, as to be able to boil it themselves. 
The Missionaries in Raiatea also erected a mill, more 
efficient than the one we had constructed in Huahine, 
cultivated a quantity of cane, made sugar themselves, 
and taught the inhabitants of the island to do the 
same. 
Sugarcane grows spontaneously in all the South Sea 
islands, and more than ten varieties are indigenous. It 
has been stated, that the best canes now cultivated in the 
West Indies, are the kinds taken thither by Captain Bligh. 
In their native islands they grow remarkably fine. I 
have frequently seen canes as thick as a man’s wrist, and 
ten or twelve feet between the root and the leaves. The 
irimotu, a large yellow cane, and the to-ura, of a dark 
red colour, grow verv large, and yield an abundance of 
