THE PEARL ISLANDS. 305 
amongst the most rude and savage tribes of the 
eastern Pacific. Their food principally consists 
of fish and cocoa-nuts, as there is but little 
land capable of cultivation. Their means of 
subsistence are often scanty, and always pre¬ 
carious. They are exceedingly ferocious, and 
addicted to war, which they prosecute with 
cruelty, and are said generally to feast on the 
slain : a captive child has been fed with the flesh 
of her own parent. The trees on the island are but 
small, yet the natives formerly built better vessels 
than any other nation in the eastern part of the 
ocean, and they are more daring and successful na¬ 
vigators than the more favoured and civilized tribes 
which they occasionally visit. Their canoes were 
dignified by the Tahitians with the name of pahi , 
a term applied only to their own war-canoes, and 
the vessels of foreigners, and they are still superior 
to any in this part of the Pacific, excepting those 
recently constructed at Tahiti in the European 
manner. 
The miseries of war had, in the early part of 
the reign of Pomare II., king of Tahiti, driven 
many of the inhabitants of these islands to the 
Georgian group for security. They were pro¬ 
tected and hospitably entertained by Pomare; and 
when his own subjects renounced idolatry, they 
also cast away the gods they had brought with 
them, and were instructed by the Missionaries. 
In 1817 great numbers returned to their native 
islands, accompanied by Moorea, one of their 
countrymen, who was a pious man, and had been 
taught to read. On reaching Anaa, or Chain 
Island, his birth-place, he began to instruct the 
people with such success, under the Divine 
blessing, that, with the exception of the inhabit- 
III. x 
