The earth and its inhabitants The earth and its inhabitants .. earthitsinhabita00recl Year: 1890 482 AUSTRALASIA. East of this mysterious land the dispersion took place from island to island, and essays have been made to trace the very order of the migrations by the aid of the map of Tahiti and surrounding islands prepared by the Tahitian Tupaïa, who accompanied Cook on one of his voyages. But this map itself, correct enough for Tahiti and neighbouring lands, has probably little more than a mj'thical value for the more western regions. Meanwhile, the race itself seems to be almost everj^wher
The earth and its inhabitants The earth and its inhabitants .. earthitsinhabita00recl Year: 1890 482 AUSTRALASIA. East of this mysterious land the dispersion took place from island to island, and essays have been made to trace the very order of the migrations by the aid of the map of Tahiti and surrounding islands prepared by the Tahitian Tupaïa, who accompanied Cook on one of his voyages. But this map itself, correct enough for Tahiti and neighbouring lands, has probably little more than a mj'thical value for the more western regions. Meanwhile, the race itself seems to be almost everj^where hastening to its extinction, as shown by the accurate returns made at different times during the present century. In 1774 Cook estimated the population of Tahiti at about two Fig. 214.—Movements of the Oceanic Populations. Scale 1 : 150,000,000. ^^//sKa^/ , fl6M'i- Mi Ttiftl: 40° ''C' Méridiâo or breenwicn 180' jO° ||[|niï|l Lands in which the population is increasing'. The population increases also in the islands inserted on the map. In all the others it diminishea. -^__^^^^^_ 1,800 Miles. hundred and forty thousand, reduced to one hundred and fifty thousand by Forster, who assigned six hundred and fift}^ thousand to the whole of Pol^mesia. At present the Polynesians number scarcely more than one hundred and ten thousand, but while they are thus disappearing at a rapid rate they still remain physically one of the finest races on the face of the globe. In this respect there appears to be no deterioration, and the decrease in numbers must be attributed in great part to numerous external causes, such as former massacres, the contract labour system, especially before it was regulated by government control, the sale of strong drinks, and above all the epidemics introduced b}' the white traders and seafarers. In 1778, immediately after Cook's visit, Hawaii was decimated by this scourge, and what the Hawaiians assert all their Polynesian kindred repeat, that disease and
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