INFANTICIDE IMMEDIATE AFTER BIRTH. 255 
with verdant turf. This is not an exaggerated 
description, but the narrative of actual fact; other 
details, more touching and acute, have been repeat¬ 
edly given to me in the islands, by individuals 
who had been themselves employed in these unna¬ 
tural deeds. 
The horrid act, if not committed at the time the 
infant entered the world, was not perpetrated at 
any subsequent period. Whether this was a kind 
of law among the people, or whether it was the 
power of maternal affection, by which they were 
influenced, it is not necessary now to inquire; but 
the fact is consolatory. If the little stranger was, 
from irresolution, the mingled emotions that strug¬ 
gled for mastery in its mother’s bosom, or any 
other cause, suffered to live ten minutes or half 
an hour, it was safe ; instead of a monster’s grasp, 
it received a mother’s caress and a mother’s smile, 
and was afterwards nursed with solicitude and 
tenderness. The cruel act was indeed often com¬ 
mitted by the mother’s hand; but there were 
times when a mother’s love, a mother’s feelings, 
overcame the iron force of pagan custom, and all 
the mother’s influence and endeavours have been 
used to preserve her child. Most affecting in¬ 
stances, which I forbear reciting, have been 
detailed by some, who now perhaps are childless, 
of the struggles between the mother to preserve, 
and the father and relatives to destroy, the infant. 
This has arisen from the motives of false pride by 
which they were on some occasions influenced. 
The reasons assigned for this practice, though 
varied, were uniformly shameful and criminal. The 
first is the regulation of the Areoi institution, in 
order to be a member of which it was necessary, 
in obedience to the express injunction of the tute- 
