POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 29 
Islands contain not less than ten or eleven thousand. 
Connected with these may he considered the Paumo- 
tus or Pearl Islands^ of whose population it is diffi¬ 
cult to form any correct estimate, as there are 
no means of ascertaining their numbers, except¬ 
ing from the reports of the natives, and the observa¬ 
tions of masters of vessels, who generally make a very 
short stay among them. Anaa, or Prince of Wales’s 
Island, is said to he inhabited by several thousands, and 
as the islands are numerous, though small, it is to he 
presumed that their population does not amount to 
less than ten thousand. From these statements it will 
appear, that the population of the Georgian and So¬ 
ciety Islands together with the adjacent clusters, with 
which the natives maintain constant intercourse, and 
to which Christianity has been conveyed by native or 
European teachers, comprises between forty-eight and 
fifty thousand persons. In this number, the Marque¬ 
sas, to which native teachers have gone, and which 
one of the Missionaries has recently visited, are not 
included. Their population is probably about thirty 
thousand. 
With respect to the Society and neighbouring islands, 
although no ancient monuments are found indicat¬ 
ing that they were ever inhabited by a race much 
further advanced in civilization than those found on 
their shores by Wallis, Cook, and Bougainville ; yet 
that race has evidently, at no very remote period, 
been much more numerous than it was when dis¬ 
covered by Europeans. In the bottom of every valley, 
even to the recesses in the mountains, on the sides 
of the inferior hills, and on the brows of almost 
every promontory, in each of the islands, monuments 
