a high-chieftaincy, they were suffered, on grounds of policy, to

spare one child; all other children, who had a father or a mother

in the company of Oro, stood condemned from the moment of

conception. A freemasonry, an agnostic sect, a company of artists,

its members all under oath to spread unchastity, and all forbidden

to leave offspring--I do not know how it may appear to others, but

to me the design seems obvious. Famine menacing the islands, and

the needful remedy repulsive, it was recommended to the native mind

by these trappings of mystery, pleasure, and parade. This is the

more probable, and the secret, serious purpose of the institution

appears the more plainly, if it be true that, after a certain

period of life, the obligation of the votary was changed; at first,

bound to be profligate: afterwards, expected to be chaste.

Here, then, we have one side of the case. Man-eating among kindly

men, child-murder among child-lovers, industry in a race the most

idle, invention in a race the least progressive, this grim, pagan

salvation-army of the brotherhood of Oro, the report of early

voyagers, the widespread vestiges of former habitation, and the

universal tradition of the islands, all point to the same fact of

former crowding and alarm. And to-day we are face to face with the

reverse. To-day in the Marquesas, in the Eight Islands of Hawaii,

in Mangareva, in Easter Island, we find the same race perishing

like flies. Why this change? Or, grant that the coming of the

whites, the change of habits, and the introduction of new maladies

and vices, fully explain the depopulation, why is that depopulation

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