scourge
were pitiable in the extreme. The very name bestowed upon it is a combination of
all that is horrid and unmentionable to a civilised being.
    Distracted with their sufferings, they brought forth their sick before the
missionaries, when they were preaching, and cried out, »Lies, lies! you tell us
of salvation; and, behold, we are dying. We want no other salvation than to live
in this world. Where are there any saved through your speech? Pomaree is dead;
and we are all dying with your cursed diseases. When will you give over?«
    At present, the virulence of the disorder in individual cases has somewhat
abated; but the poison is only the more widely diffused.
    »How dreadful and appalling,« breaks forth old Wheeler, »the consideration
that the intercourse of distant nations should have entailed upon these poor,
untutored islanders a curse unprecedented and unheard of in the annals of
history.«
    In view of these things, who can remain blind to the fact, that so far as
mere temporal felicity is concerned, the Tahitians are far worse off now than
formerly; and although their circumstances, upon the whole, are bettered by the
presence of the missionaries, the benefits conferred by the latter become
utterly insignificant when confronted with the vast preponderance of evil
brought about by other means.
    Their prospects are hopeless. Nor can the most devoted efforts now exempt
them from furnishing a marked illustration of a principle which history has
always exemplified. Years ago brought to a stand, where all that is corrupt in
barbarism and civilisation unite, to the exclusion of the virtues of either
state; like other uncivilised beings brought into contact with Europeans, they
must here remain stationary until utterly extinct.
    The islanders themselves are mournfully watching their doom. Several years
since, Pomaree II. said to Tyreman and Bennet, the deputies of the London
Missionary Society, »You have come to see me at a very bad time. Your ancestors
came in the time of men, when Tahiti was inhabited: you are come to behold just
the remnant of my people.«
    Of like import was the prediction of Teearmoar, the high-priest of Paree;
who lived over a hundred years ago. I have frequently heard it chanted, in a
low, sad tone, by aged Tahitians: -
 
»A harree ta fow,
A toro ta farraro,
A now ta tararta.«
 
The palm-tree shall grow,
The coral shall spread,
But man shall cease.
 

                                   Chapter L

                        Something Happens to Long Ghost

We will now return to the narrative.
    The day before the Julia sailed, Doctor