f their vices; this, however, is common to all
uncivilized nations, and, it may be added, civilized too. But to judge
them fairly in this respect, we should compare their situation with that
of a more civilized people. A native of Otaheite goes on board a ship
and finds himself in the midst of iron bolts, nails, knives, scattered
about, and is tempted to carry off a few of them. If we could suppose a
ship from El Dorado to arrive in the Thames, and that the custom-house
officers, on boarding her, found themselves in the midst of bolts,
hatchets, chisels, all of solid gold, scattered about the deck, one need
scarcely say what would be likely to happen. If the former found the
temptation irresistible to supply himself with what was essentially
useful--the latter would be as little able to resist that which would
contribute to the indulgence of his avarice or the gratification of his
pleasures, or of both.

Such was the state of this beautiful island and its interesting and
fascinating natives at the time when Captain Wallis first discovered and
Lieutenant Cook shortly afterwards visited it. What they now are, as
described by Captain Beechey, it is lamentable to reflect. All their
usual and innocent amusements have been denounced by the missionaries,
and, in lieu of them, these poor people have been driven to seek for
resources in habits of indolence and apathy: that simplicity of
character, which atoned for many of their faults, has been converted
into cunning and hypocrisy; and drunkenness, poverty, and disease have
thinned the island of its former population to a frightful degree. By a
survey of the first missionaries, and a census of the inhabitants, taken
in 1797, the population was estimated at 16,050 souls; Captain
Waldegrave, in 1830, states it, on the authority of a census also taken
by the missionaries, to amount only to 5000--and there is but too much
reason to ascribe this diminution to praying, psalm-singing, and
dram-drinking.[3]

The island of Otaheite is in shape two circles united by a low and
narrow isthmus. The larger circle is named Otaheite Mooe, and is about
thirty miles in diameter; the lesser, named Tiaraboo, about ten miles in
diameter. A belt of low land, terminating in numerous valleys, ascending
by gentle slopes to the central mountain, which is about seven thousand
feet high, surrounds the larger circle, and the same is the case with
the smaller circle on a proportionate scale. Down these vall