A.—3b

20

(so called, though there is really no king there but the English missionary) professes to claim it, but he has no right to it whatever. It used to be inhabited in Cook's days, and since, but about forty years ago the last of the inhabitants disappeared ; they had fought among themselves till all were killed but a remnant, and they died of disease introduced by Europeans. Upon most of the isles of the Hervey Group, especially Mangaia and Earotonga, many of the vegetables of Europe are found, from the mildness of the climate, growing side by side with those of the tropics. They have been introduced by the missionaries and by friendly traders. Potatoes grow well on the high lands ; barley, maize, millet, and American beans grow to perfection. The thermometer ranges about 80° in the warmest season. Europeans enjoy robust health; there is no indigenous disease. Of all the lands of the Pacific suitable for British colonization, none present more favourable conditions than those of the Hervey and Austral Isles. In presence of the increasing interest of commercial men which is now being directed to the South Pacific, and the rapid decay of the aborigines, the period at which they shall pass into the possession of Europeans has simply become a question of time. All the islands of the Gilbert (or Kingsmill) Group are of tho same distinctive character : low atolls, having generally interior lagoons, with or without entrances for shipping. There are fifteen islands in all. Tapetuia, or Drummond's Island, which lies almost on the equator, is a fair example of the rest. The interior lagoon is seventy miles in length, and has two entrances for ships. A few years ago, this island was immensely populous, but the number of inhabitants has been greatly reduced by their incessant intoxication from fermented cocoa-nut toddy, contagious disease introduced by whalefishers, and by the visits of labour ships from Tahiti, Fiji, and Samoa. They now number about 3,000. As concerns this labour system, the rights or wrongs of which have lately provoked so much bitter discussion, I can say for the natives of the Kingsmills, and of Tapetuia in particular, knowing them intimately as I do, that the greatest benefit, under existing circumstances, which their fellow-men can bestow upon them, is to take them to the cotton aud sugar planting lands, even supposing them never again to be returned to their native island. lam not alluding to a labour traffic such as that conducted by the " Carl," which was a series of atrocious piracies, directed by a madman and carried out by villains who did evil for the very love of it, but to a system of engagement for short terms, under just and humane regulations, like those of the Germans in Samoa, of which the results are most beneficial to the Kingsmill islanders, and will be to their posterity, if they do not disappear off the face of the earth before they come to maturity, as they are very likely to do if left to themselves. Chronic intoxication, venereal disease, and a habit of carrying deadly weapons and using them on slight occasion, will bring them to an end in a very few years, unless some determined and judicious Europeans, backed by the authority of a civilized State, interfere to save them from themselves. It must be remembered that these Kingsmill islanders, barbarous as they were before they made the acquaintance of Europeans, lived in a condition of respectability as compared with the state in which we now find them. Though savage, they were at least sober, and they had a sort of law, or customs having the force of law ; now, except among some of the cannibal tribes of the Louisiade, it would be difficult to conceive a more perfect pandemonium than most of the Kingsmill Isles present. The inhabitants are incessantly drunk and perpetually fighting, and their combats are no child's play. I have counted upon one man's body the scars of more than a hundred wounds. The condition of the women is most miserable, and the aged and infirm are allowed to perish without care; and yet naturally these people are of a good disposition, affectionate to one another, grateful to those who are kind to them, tractable, ingenious, and industrious. They are the lowest type of the copper-coloured Polynesian, and are incapable of any great degree of intellectual improvement. Consequently, the labours of missionaries (who in some cases have been among them for a dozen years or more) have been as yet barren of all result; but they are a people who can be made immensely useful, and whom it is easy to make happy. Their wants are few, and their minds simple and easily satisfied; so that if brought under the influence of good example and wholesome restraint, they could in a very few years be rendered in a high degree subservient to the interests of that civilization which it is the manifest destiny of the Anglo-Saxon colonists of Australasia to extend to the uttermost isles of the sea. No people have suffered more from the worst examples than these unfortunate islanders. Drunkenness, licentiousness, piracy, murder, have been the lessons inculcated among them, during the past thirty years, by deserters from ships or escaped convicts from Australia, to whom they extended the most generous hospitality. I have questioned old white men, who had spent the best years of their lives among the Kingsmills, as to how they could have reconciled themselves to dwell among a people so debased. They have replied, " Ah, Sir, you do not know these natives. When we came among them they were different altogether to what they are now; and even now there is a deal of good in them, more than strangers can understand." As a proof that the Kingsmill islanders are not desitute of that kind of intelligence which leads men to inaugurate a settled government, and to abide by its requirements, I will briefly describe what I have witnessed on Apemama (Simpson Island), one of the largest of the group. The principal village is built upon the shore of the lagoon, three miles from its entrance to the sea. There is a secure harbour, with a wide and safe channel. The population is about 5,000. They are ruled over by a King called Tern Baiteke. He is also King of Kuria (Woodle Island), having a population of about 1,500, and of Aranuka (Henderville Island), where there are 1,000. His power is absolute; he allows no man of his own people to stand in his immediate presence or to look him in the face. His guards are armed with muskets, cartouche boxes, and swords. His dwelling consists of very large house and several smaller ones, with storehouses for cocoa-nut oil and other produce. He has European furniture, and articles of utility and luxury of various kinds. He has a number of wives. His quarters are surrounded by a stone wall, with twelve pieces of cannon of various calibre. He has a schooner of sixty tons ; she has four guns on her deck. He has good whaleboats, besides war canoes. He dresses in the European fashion—usually black trousers, linen shirt, and alpaca coat. He does not allow his people to get drunk. His laws are severe ; death is the penalty of even trifling offences. Near his house are to be seen human heads stuck upon spikes as a caution to disobedient subjects.