The east, with its variations from northeast to southeast, being the regular trade wind, is most prevalent, but is seldom unpleasantly violent. Winds from the north are often tempestuous, more so than from the south, yet, although during the season of variable winds, viz. from December to March, they are strong, and continue several days, they are not dangerous. The wind seldom prevails from the west among the Society Islands, except in the months of December, January, and February. At this season, though the westerly winds are usually of short duration, they are often heavy and boisterous. The sky is dark and lowering, rain frequently falls in torrents, and the weather is remarkably unsettled. Rain is much more frequent in the Society than in the Sandwich Islands, during the whole of the year; but, except in the rainy season, it is seldom heavy or lasting: gentle showers fall, during many of the months, almost every alternate day, though sometimes there are some weeks of dry weather. The rainy season, the only variation of the tropical year, occurs when the sun is vertical, and generally continues from December to March. At this season the rains are heavy, and often incessant for several weeks-the streams are swollen and muddy—the lowlands overflowed-fences washed away-and, unless great care is taken, many plantations destroyed. The winds are also variable and tempestuous, the climate is more insalubrious, and sickness among the people greater, than at any other period. Thun der and lightning are frequent on the islands, especially during the rainy season. The lightnings are vivid and awful, though not frequently injurious to the dwellings, or fatal to the inhabitants. The thunder is sometimes loud and terrific, often more appalling than any I ever heard in any other parts of the world. The awful effect of the loud and quick-succeeding thunders is probably much increased by the hilly nature of the country, which greatly augments the reverberations of the deafening reports. Among the natural phenomena of the South Sea Islands, the tide is one of the most singular, and presents as great an exception to the theory of Sir Isaac Newton, as is to be met with in any part of the world. The rising and falling of the waters of the ocean appear, if influenced at all, to be so in a very small degree only, by the moon. The height to which the water rises varies but a few inches during the whole year, and at no time is it elevated more than a foot, or a foot and a half. The sea, however, often rises to an unusual height, but this appears to be the effect of a strong wind blowing for some time from one quarter, or the heavy swells of the sea, which flow from different directions, and prevail equally during the time of high and low water. But the most remarkable circumstance is, the uniformity of the time of high and low water. During the year, whatever be the age or situation of the moon, the water is lowest at six in the morning, and the same hour in the evening, and highest at noon and midnight. This is so well established, that the time of night is marked by the ebbing and flowing of the tide; and, in all the islands, the term for high water and for midnight is the same.' After much interesting information on the manners of the people previously to their conversion, on their sports and plays, the author makes the following remarks respecting their moral state :— * Their humour and their jests were, however, but rarely what might be termed innocent sallies of wit; they were in general low and immoral to a disgusting degree. Their common conversation, when engaged in their ordinary avocations, was often such as the ear could not listen to without pollution, presenting images and conveying sentiments whose most fleeting passage through the mind left contamination. Awfully dark, indeed, was their moral character, and notwithstanding the apparent mildness of their disposition, and the cheerful vivacity of their conversation, no portion of the human race was ever, perhaps, sunk lower in brutal licentiousness and moral degradation than this isolated people. "The Paphian Venus, driven from the west, In Polynesian groves long undisturbed, The veil of oblivion must be spread over this part of their character, of which the appalling picture, drawn by the pen of inspiration in the hand of the apostle, in the first chapter of his Epistle to the Romans, revolting and humiliating as it is, affords but too faithful a portraiture.' We wish these evidences of depravity were confined to heathen nations. But they are not. As St. Paul said to the Jews, so we may say to Christians, The name of God is blasphemed among the Gentiles through you.' Indeed, according to our author's own showing, these islanders were comparatively innocent before they were corrupted by their European visiters. In endeavouring to ascertain the causes of that decrease of population which was so manifest as to admit of no doubt, Mr. Ellis attributes it, in a great measure, to their being taught, by those Europeans who had from time to time visited them, the manufacture and use of ardent spirits. The intemperate use of these introduced idleness, domestic quarrels, war and bloodshed, and all that train of evils which generally accompanies and follows intoxication. It is true that these evils are not to be attributed to Christianity, but they are to be attributed to the conduct of those who bore the Christian name, and belonged to nations who boast of their superior advantages as a civilized and Christian people. Nor is this a solitary instance of the kind. The natives of our own continent have been deceived, corrupted, abused, and debased by their proximity to the civilized and Christianized white people! And if we look into the state of society generally among the civilized nations where the light of revelation has long shone, we shall see the same sad demonstrations of depravity which have characterized barbarous na tions. And among all the vices which have debased mankind, intoxication, which seems to be the mother of a thousand others, has no where abounded more than among Christians, so called. We could also enumerate other vices, over which the veil of oblivion must be .spread,' because decency forbids the naming them, which are, perhaps, VOL. V.-January, 1834. 4 as prevalent, as disgusting, and as blighting to human character, fame and happiness, temporal and eternal, as those by which heathen nations have been characterized and disgraced. It is true, we do not literally sacrifice our sons and daughters to Moloch; but we sacrifice them to drunkenness, to lewdness, to avarice and cruelty, to war and bloodshed; and thus as effectually devote them to certain destruction and damnation, as if they were sacrificed literally to the worship of Bacchus, Venus, or Mars. And who is there among parents but what is more solicitous to train up their children for this world, that they may become rich and luxurious, than they are to fit them for an eternal inheritance? These are facts which to attempt to deny would betray the want of that very candor and sincerity which is so estimable in the sight of every true Christian. What profit then,' it may be asked, hath the Christian? We answer, notwithstanding these facts stare us in the face, much, every way.' For although these sad evidences of depravity are so visible that they cannot be denied, they are by no means universal in every, if, indeed, in any Christian community. The facts, therefore, which wer have stated respecting the prevalence of vice, furnish no cause of triumph to the infidel. If, indeed, we attempted to deny their existence, or even to disguise or palliate them, he then might justly accuse us of that very dishonesty which Christianity condemns, and which, therefore, would add another testimony in favor of that depravity which is so much deprecated. But though these things are even so, as we before remarked, they do not exist universally. There are those individuals to be found, if not whole communities, who exhibit in their words, tempers, and actions, the purity of the Christian character, who are freed from the dominion of vice, and who, consequently, loudly protest, both by example and precept, against those debasing evils which exert such a deteriorating influence upon society. These show what might be done for and by others, were the doctrines and precepts of Christianity faithfully and practically illustrated by all their professed friends and advocates. Facts demonstrate that the inebriate may be reformed, and that, under the radical influence of Christianity, where it is preached and embraced in its purity and power, the most profligate of mankind have been regenerated, and have thereafter given the most indubitable evidence of the genuineness of the work by their tempers, words, and actions. This, therefore, shows what Christianity can do when faithfully embraced and improved, and affords, so far as internal testimony is concerned, an irrefutable argument in favor of its truth. The infractions of its doctrines and precepts which we have noticed, are not the legitimate effects of Christianity, but are manifest abuses of its principles-abuses growing out of the prevailing propensity of the human heart to pervert the best gifts of God to the worst purposes; and these abuses of the merciful provisions of Christianity, practically exhibited by so large a portion of the human family, whether civilized or barbarian, confirm one of the leading truths of the system, namely, the universal corruption and depravity of the human heart. In this way the very facts on which the infidel seizes to disparage Christianity are those by which its truths are established. And if he will allow the same reasoning to apply here which he must apply to any other subject of investigation, that is, that the abuse of a thing, so far from militating against its goodness, amounts to an argument in favor of its intrinsic excellence, he will find all those objections arising from the inconsistencies of professed Christians obviated. But, on the other hand, if he insist upon the validity of such objections, and that therefore Christianity should be discarded as a false and dangerous system, he must also, in order to be consistent throughout, banish from the world all good laws, all the conveniences and luxuries, and even the necessaries of life; for all these, through the profligacy of mankind, have been less or more abused by a wrong and perverted use of them. Nay, human beings themselves must, on this principle of reasoning, be annihilated, because they have used their • members as instruments of unrighteousness.' The point is established beyond the power of refutation, that Christianity is not justly held responsible for those acts of wickedness which it forbids and condemns in unequivocal language, but which, nevertheless, its professed friends wilfully perpetrate. The same objections which have been brought against Christianity as a whole, even from the days of its establishment to the present time, have been brought against those sections of it comprehended in the circle of missionary operations. This has been the case especially in regard to the missions which have been established in the Polynesian Islands. In the course of our remarks upon the work before us, we shall have an opportunity to examine the weight of this objection. If, upon a fair and candid examination, it shall be found that the condition of these people has been greatly meliorated by the introduction of Christianity among them, both as respects their temporal, moral, and religious character and privileges, then the objection falls to the ground, and we derive an additional argument in favor of aboriginal and foreign missions, as well as in favor of Christianity itself. Before, however, we enter directly upon this point, we will present our readers with our author's account of their traditions respecting their origin. But even these, confused and contradictory as they are, will afford a strong collateral proof of the Divine authority of the sacred Scriptures, when compared with the luminous account which these give of the origin of all things: 'A very generally received Tahitian tradition is, that the first human pair were made by Taaroa, the principal deity formerly acknowledged by the nation. On more than one occasion I have listened to the details of the people respecting his work of creation. They say that after Taaroa had formed the world, he created man out of araea, red earth, which was also the food of man until bread-fruit was produced. In connection with this, some relate that Taaroa one day called for the man by name. When he came he caused him to fall asleep, and that, while he slept, he took out one of his ivt, or bones, and with it made a woman, whom he gave to the man as his wife, and that they became the progenitors of mankind. This always appeared to me a mere recital of the Mosaic account of creation, which they had heard from some European, and I never placed any reliance on it, although they have repeatedly told me it was a tradition among them before any foreigner arrived. Some have also stated that the woman's name was Ivi, which would be by them pronounced as if written Eve. Ivi is an aboriginal word, and not only signifies a bone, but also a widow, and a victim slain in war. Notwithstanding the assertion of the natives, I am disposed to think that Ivi, or Eve, is the only aboriginal part of the story, as far as it respects the mother of the human race. Should more careful and minute inquiry confirm the truth of their declaration, and prove that this account was in existence among them prior to their intercourse with Europeans, it will be the most remarkable and valuable oral tradition of the origin of the human race yet known. Another extensive and popular tradition referred the origin of the people to Opoa, in the island of Raiatea, where the tiis, or spirits, formerly resided, who assumed of themselves, or received from the gods, human bodies, and became the progenitors of mankind. The name of one was Tii Maaraauta; Tii, branching or extending toward the land, or the interior: and of the other, Tii Maaraatai; Tii, branching or spreading toward the sea. These, however, are supposed to be but other names for Taaroa. It is supposed that prior to the period of Tii Maaraauta's existence the islands were only resorted to by the gods or spiritual beings; but that these two, endowed with powers of procreation, produced the human species. They first resided at Opoa, whence they peopled the island of Raiatea, and subsequently spread themselves over the whole cluster. Others state that Tii was not a spirit, but a human being, the first man made by the gods; that his wife was sometimes called Tii, and sometimes Hina; that when they died their spirits were supposed to survive the dissolution of the body, and were still called by the same name, and hence the term tii was first applied to the spirits of the departed, a signification which it retained till idolatry was abolished. In the Ladrone Islands departed chiefs, or the spirits of such, are called aritis, and to them prayers were addressed. The tiis of Tahiti were also considered a kind of inferior deities, to whom on several occasions, prayers were offered. The resemblance of this term to the demons or dii of the ancients is singular, and might favor the conjecture that both were derived from the same source. The origin of the islands, as well as their inhabitants, was generally attributed to Taaroa, or the joint agency of Taaroa and Hina; and |