enable the Tahitians to roll in riches, at least
according to their own estimate of the value of money and of the
luxuries it procures. The sugar-cane is indigenous to the island, and of
remarkably fine quality; cotton is of ready growth; but the fine
existing plantations "are owned and worked by whites, who would rather
pay a drunken sailor eighteen or twenty Spanish dollars a month, than
hire a sober native for his fish and _taro_." Wholly without energy, the
Tahitians saunter away their lives in a state of drowsy indolence,
aiming only at the avoidance of trouble, and the sensual enjoyment of
the moment. The race rapidly diminishes. "In 1777, Captain Cook
estimated the population of Tahiti at about two hundred thousand. By a
regular census taken some four or five years ago, it was found to be
only nine thousand!" Diseases of various kinds, entirely of European
introduction, and chiefly the result of drunkenness and debauchery,
account for this frightful decrease, which must result in the extinction
of the aborigines.

"The palm-tree shall grow,
The coral shall spread,
But man shall cease."

So runs an old Tahitian prophecy, soon to be realised. And if Pomaree,
who is under forty years of age, proves a long-lived sovereign, she may
chance to find herself a queen without subjects. Concerning her majesty
and her court, Typee is diffuse and diverting. This is an age of queens,
and although her dominions be of the smallest, her people few and
feeble, and her prerogative wofully clipped, she of Tahiti has made some
noise in the world, and attracted a fair share of public attention. At
one time, indeed, she was almost as much thought of and talked about as
her more civilised and puissant European sisters. In France, _La Reine
Pomaree_ was looked upon as a far more interesting personage than
Spanish Isabel or Portuguese Maria; and extraordinary notions were
formed as to the appearance, habits, and attributes of her dusky
majesty. Distance favoured delusion, and French imagination ran riot in
conjecture, until the reports of the valiant Thonars, and his squadron
of protection, dissipated the enchantment, and reduced Pomaree to her
true character, that of a lazy, dirty, licentious, Polynesian savage,
who walks about barefoot, drinks spirits, and hen-pecks her husband. Her
real name is Aimata, but she assumed, on ascending the throne, the royal
patronymic by which she is best known. There were Caesars in Rome, th