POPULATION. 
101 
CHAP. V. 
Comparative numbers of the inhabitants—Indications and 
causes of depopulation—Beneficial tendency of Christi¬ 
anity—Origin of the inhabitants of the South Sea 
Islands—Traditions—Legends of Taaroa and Hina— 
Resemblance to Jewish history—Coincidences in lan¬ 
guage, mythology, &c. with the language, &c. of the 
Hindoos and Malays, Madagasse, and South Americans 
—Probable source of population—Difficulty of reaching 
the islands from the west—Account of the different 
native voyages—Geographical extent over which the 
Polynesian race and language prevail. 
It is impossible for any one who has visited these 
islands, or traversed any one of the districts, to 
entertain the slightest doubt that the number of 
inhabitants in the South Sea Islands was formerly 
much greater than at present. What their number, 
in any remote period of their history, may have 
been, it is not easy to ascertain : Captain Cook 
estimated those residing in Tahiti at 200,000. The 
grounds, however, on which he formed his conclu¬ 
sions were certainly fallacious. The population 
was at all times so fugitive and uncertain, as to the 
proportion it bore to any section of geographical 
surface, that no correct inference, as to the amount 
of the whole, could be drawn from the numbers 
seen in one part. Captain Wilson's calculation, in 
1797, made the population of Tahiti only about 
16,000; and, not many years afterwards, the 
Missionaries declared it as their opinion, that this 
island did not contain, more than 8000 souls ; and I 
