POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
129 
for the mother next selected 5 and then the father, with 
the remainder of their native produce, has purchased 
some articles for himself. Their first effort now is 
generally to purchase, and to learn to make light cloth¬ 
ing for their children; and there are perhaps few 
parents in the islands who would think of purchasing 
a garment for themselves, while their little one was 
destitute. 
It is a pleasing fact, which demonstrates unequi¬ 
vocally that the South Sea Islanders are not deficient 
in capacity, but are capable, when inducement sufficient 
is offered, of acquiring habits of close industry, that 
in the islands of Raiatea and Huahine, or any of the 
stations in the Leeward Islands, there was hardly an 
adult female, excepting the aged and infirm, who could 
not use her needle so as to make her own clothes, and 
those required by other members of the family. I 
have not had equal opportunity of knowing what pro¬ 
gress the females in the Windward Islands have made, 
but have reason to believe it is highly creditable to their 
application. 
The occupation furnished by the new order of things 
that has followed the introduction of Christianity, is one 
of the important sources of their present enjoyment. 
But this is not the only advantage resulting therefrom. 
It has opened a new channel for commercial enterprise, 
and has actually created a market for British manufac¬ 
tures, the consumption of which, among the islands of 
the Pacific that have received the Gospel, is already 
considerable: Mr. Stewart estimates that the trade of 
four American merchants in the Sandwich Islands 
amounts to one hundred thousand dollars a year; this, 
however, is a far greater amount than that of all the 
ir. s 
