DEPOPULATION. 
103 
islands, although no ancient monuments are found 
indicating that they were ever inhabited by a race 
much further advanced in civilization than those 
found on their shores by Wallis, Cook, and Bou¬ 
gainville ; yet that race has evidently, at no very 
remote period, been much more numerous than it 
was when discovered by Europeans. In the bot¬ 
tom of every valley, even to the recesses in the 
mountains, on the sides of the inferior lulls, and on 
the brows of almost every promontory, in each of 
the islands, monuments of former generations are 
still met with in great abundance. Stone pave¬ 
ments of their dwellings and court-yards, founda¬ 
tions of houses, and ruins of family temples, are 
numerous. Occasionally they are found in ex¬ 
posed 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, deeply sensible of the 
depopulation that has taken place even within 
the recollection of those most advanced in years, 
have felt acutely in prospect of the annihila¬ 
tion that appeared inevitable. Their priests for¬ 
merly denounced the destruction of the nation, as 
the greatest punishment the gods could inflict, and 
the following was one of the predictions : E tupu 
te fau , e toro te farero, e mou te taata: u The fau 
( 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 
