e the effect of this great change, we must compare Christian
Tahaiti as it now is, with the accounts these early voyagers have left
us of its heathen times; and as every reader may not be conveniently
able to do so, a short review of them may not be considered unwelcome.

The Society Islands, of which Tahaiti is the largest, are, like many
others, either fragments of a Southern continent swallowed up by
earthquake, or a mass of rock ejected from the bottom of the sea by
subterranean fire, which gradually becoming covered with a fertile soil,
is now adorned by the most beautiful vegetation. It consists of two
peninsulas united by a narrow isthmus, which together are about one
hundred and twenty miles in circumference; towards the centre of each
rise wild rocky mountains, intersected by deep ravines, from the side of
which, thickly wooded almost to their summits, flow numerous streamlets
of pure transparent water, forming the most picturesque cascades as
they descend from every direction into the sea. The high mountains are
uninhabited, and the settlements made only in the valleys, more
especially in the low land between the mountains and the sea-shore.

In these charming amphitheatrical landscapes, their houses, consisting
only of roofs resting on stakes, surrounded and shaded by bananas,
bread-fruit and cocoa-trees, are scattered at small distances from each
other.

Attached to every house are enclosed fields, where the proprietors
cultivate their yams, sweet potatoes, and other wholesome and pleasant
roots, which form their chief nourishment.

The rest of the cultivated land is filled by plantations of bananas and
plantains, or little forests of cocoa and bread-fruit trees, so
luxuriantly interwoven, that the burning rays of the sun cannot
penetrate to injure the bright verdure which clothes the soil. The
neatly kept grass footpaths leading through these groves from one
dwelling to another, are variegated with flowers of the richest colours
and most fragrant perfumes, and enlivened by the notes of innumerable
birds arrayed in all the splendid hues of the Tropics. Although Tahaiti
is only seventeen degrees from the Equator, the heat is so much
moderated by refreshing breezes that it is very supportable even to an
European. Bougainville never found it above twenty-two, and often under
eighteen degrees of Reaumur. That indeed was during the winter; but even
in January, the middle of the Tahaitian summer, the atmosphere