DEPOPULATION. 
105 
the evil spirit; comparing themselves to a firebrand 
unconsumed among the mouldering embers of a 
recent conflagration. These figures, and others 
equally affecting and impressive, were but too 
appropriate, as emblems of the actual state to 
which they were reduced. Under the depopulating 
influence of vicious habits—the dreadful devasta¬ 
tion of diseases that followed, and the early de¬ 
struction of health-—the prevalence of infanticide 
—the frequency of war—the barbarous principles 
upon which it was prosecuted, and the increase of 
human sacrifices, it does not appear possible that 
they could have existed, as a nation, for many 
generations longer. 
An inquiry naturally presents itself in connexion 
with this subject, viz.-—To what cause is this recent 
change in the circumstances of the people to be 
attributed ? It is self-evident, that if these habits 
had always prevailed among the Tahitians, they 
must long since have been annihilated. Society 
must, at some time, have been more favourable, not 
only to the preservation, but to the increase of 
population, or the inhabitants could never have 
been so numerous as they undoubtedly were a 
century or a century and a half ago. There is no 
question that depopulation had taken place to 
a considerable extent prior to their discovery by 
Captain Wallis, and it is not easy to discover the 
causes which first led to it. Infanticide and human 
sacrifices, together with their wars, appear to have 
occasioned the diminution of the inhabitants before 
the period alluded to. Whether wars were more 
frequent immediately preceding their discovery, 
than it had been in earlier ages, we have not the 
means of knowing, nor have we been able to ascer¬ 
tain, with any great accuracy, how long the Areoi 
