30 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
of former generations are still met with in great 
abundance. Stone pavements of their dwellings and 
court-yards^ foundations of houses^ and ruins of family 
temples, are numerous. Occasionally they are found 
in exposed situations, but generally amidst thickets of 
brushwood or groves of trees, some of which are of 
the largest growth. All these relics are of the same 
kind as those observed among the natives at the time 
of their discovery, evidently proving that they belong 
to the same race, though to a more populous sera of their 
history. The stone tools occasionally found near these 
vestiges of antiquity demonstrate the same lamentable 
fact. 
The present generations are deeply sensible of the 
depopulation that has taken place, even within the 
recollection of those most advanced in years, and 
have felt acutely in prospect of the annihilation that 
appeared inevitable. Their priests formerly denounced 
the destruction of the nation, as the greatest pun¬ 
ishment the gods could inflict, and the following 
was one of the predictions ; E tupu te fau, e toro 
te farero, e mou te taata: ^^The fan {hibiscus) shall 
grow, the farero (coral) shall spread or stretch out 
its branches, but man shall cease."^—The fau is 
one of the most spreading trees, and is of quickest 
growth I it soon over-runs uncultivated lands; while 
the branching coral, fareroy is perhaps more rapid 
in its formation than any of the corallines that 
close up the openings in the reefs, and, wherever 
it is shallow, rise to the water’s surface, so as to 
prevent the passage of the canoe, and destroy the 
resort of the fish. This was denounced as the 
punishment that would follow disobedience to the 
