Here And There,
All Over This Archipelago, Numberless Naked, Detached Coral
Formations Are Seen, Just Emerging, As It Were From The Ocean.
These
would appear to be islands in the very process of creation - at any
rate, one involuntarily concludes so, on beholding them.
As far as I know, there are but few bread-fruit trees in any part of
the Pomotu group. In many places the cocoa-nut even does not grow;
though, in others, it largely flourishes. Consequently, some of the
islands are altogether uninhabited; others support but a single
family; and in no place is the population very large. In some
respects the natives resemble the Tahitians: their language, too, is
very similar. The people of the southeasterly clusters - concerning
whom, however, but little is known - have a bad name as cannibals; and
for that reason their hospitality is seldom taxed by the mariner.
Within a few years past, missionaries from the Society group have
settled among the Leeward Islands, where the natives have treated
them kindly. Indeed, nominally, many of these people are now
Christians; and, through the political influence of their
instructors, no doubt, a short time since came tinder the allegiance
of Pomaree, the Queen of Tahiti; with which island they always
carried on considerable intercourse.
The Coral Islands are principally visited by the pearl-shell
fishermen, who arrive in small schooners, carrying not more than five
or six men.
For a long while the business was engrossed by Merenhout, the French
Consul at Tahiti, but a Dutchman by birth, who, in one year, is said
to have sent to France fifty thousand dollars' worth of shells.
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