Volume 14 Australasia - dana ward's homepage

EQUATOELVI. POLYXESIA. 483changes of temperature, and still more the suppression of their national pastimes,boisterous rejoicings, feasts and dances, interdicted by the missionaries, haveco-operated towards the extinction of the race. The people become wear_y of a tooplacid, aimless existence, and die out through sheer inanition.Nevertheless, thereare exceptions to the general law of decadence and in certain favoured localities,such as Lukunor in the Carolines, Futuna in the Wallis group, and Niue north ofTonga, the population normally increases by the natural excess of births overdeaths.Elsewhere the natives become more and more intermingled with immigrantsfrom all quarters, and wherever any actual increase takes place, as forinstance in Tahiti, it occurs almost invariably amongst the half-castes resultingfrom these crossings. The modern era has thus begun for the Polynesians, whocan be rescued from ultimate extinction only by the sacrifice of their racial purityand gradual absorption in the surrounding poimlations.The Tonga Archipelago lies somewhat apart from the chief ocean highwaysbetween Australia and the New "World, its principal member,Tonija-Tahu, beingover 420 miles south-east of Fiji, the natural station on the route from Melbourneand Sydney to Hawaii and San Francisco. Nevertheless, Tonga is visited bymany skippers, mostly Germans, who here ship large quantities of copra, yieldedby the vast palm-groves of these fertile islands.The capital and most frequentedport of the little Tonga state is Nukualofa, on a roadstead well sheltered by reefson the north side of Tonga-Tabu. On the east side Mna, the central Catholicstation, lies near the old residence and the necropolis of the royal famil}'.Lcjuha, in the Haabai group, aud Kiua, in the lai-gest of the Vavao Islands,also trade in copra, chiefly with German houses. The port of Nina, although ofsomewhat diiBcult access, is one of the finest in the Pacific, forming an extensivebasin 20 to 25 fathoms deep, sheltered from all winds by an amphitheatre of highescarpments.East of Tonga, Savage hhnd, so called by Cook from the rude welcome givenhim by the natives, has resumed its original name of Nine (Iiiui), aud has beendeclared neutral territory by a convention signed in 1886 between England audGermany. English influence, however, is paramount in this islet, one of themost fertile in Polynesia, and inhabited by Polynesians of Tonga speech anddescent.The few islets lying north-west from Tonga and north-cast of Fiji, andcollectively called WaUis from their discoverer in 17G7, are disposed on a Huewhich, drawn from Samoa, would pass through the British island of Rotuma toAnuda and Tukopia, the last western lands inhabited by Polj-nesians. The nativesprobably came from Tonga-Tabu, although Uvea or AVallis, properly so called, isregarded by them as the cradle of their race.Futuna, west of Uvea, was formerlyinhabited by ferocious cannibals who devoured to the last man the eighteenhundred of the neighbouring island of Ahji, " Land of Love," and one of its chiefsis reported to have eaten his own mother. Wallis was annexed to the FrenchOceanic possessions in 1887.Sa/Hoa, named by Bougainville the Narigator^' Arc/iipckigo, is still a greatI I 2