102 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
cannot think that, within the last thirty years, it 
has ever contained fewer inhabitants. 
The present number of natives is about 10,000; 
that of Eimeo and Tetuaroa probably 2,000. The 
Leeward Islands perhaps contain nearly an equal 
number. The Austral Islands have about 5,000 
inhabitants ; 4,000 of whom reside in the islands of 
Rapa and Raivavai.* Rarotogna, or Rarotoa, has 
a population of nearly 7,000 ; and the whole of the 
Harvey Islands contain not less than ten or eleven 
thousand. Connected with these may be con¬ 
sidered the Paumotu, or Pearl Islands, of whose 
population it is difficult to form any correct esti¬ 
mate, as there are no means of ascertaining their 
numbers, excepting from the reports of the natives, 
and the observations of masters of vessels, who 
generally make a very short stay among them, 
Anaa, or Prince of Wales’s Island, is said to be 
inhabited by several thousands, and as the islands 
are numerous, though small, it is to be 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 Society 
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 Marquesas, to which native teachers 
have gone, and which one of the Missionaries has 
recently visited, are not included. Their popula¬ 
tion is probably about thirty or forty thousand. 
With respect to the Society and neighbouring 
* Since this estimate was first published, a severe 
epidemic has swept through these two latter islands, and 
considerably diminished the population. 
