TAHITI THE ISLAND PARADISE

When the Almighty Architect of the universe created the earth we inhabit, He manifested His wisdom, goodness and foresight in adapting, in a most admirable manner, the soil, climate, and animal and vegetable life for the habitation of man, the supreme work of creation. By the gradual and progressive geographical distribution of man over the surface of the earth, he has become habituated to diverse climates and environments, and has found conditions most congenial to his comfort and the immediate necessities of life.

In cold, laborious climes, the wintry North

Brings her undaunted, hardy warriors forth,

In body and in mind untaught to yield,

Stubborn of soul, and steady in the field;

While Asia's softer climate, form'd to please.

Dissolves her sons in indolence and ease.

LUCANUS.

It required centuries for the Esquimau to become acclimated to the inhospitable polar regions, and make them his favorite abode; the people who drifted toward the equator gradually became inured to the climate of the tropics and accustomed to the manner of living in countries where the perennial heat paralyzes the physical and mental energies, and undermines the health of strangers coming from a more temperate climate. Nature has made ample provision for man in all habitable parts of the earth. The regions of ice and snow are inhabited by fur-bearing animals, and, at certain seasons of the year, are frequented by a large variety of aquatic birds in great abundance, which supply the natives with food and clothing, while in the tropics, man has little or no need of fuel and clothing, and, with very little exertion, he can subsist on the fruits of the forests, and on the food so liberally supplied by the sea.

The intensity of the struggle for life increases with the distance north and south from the temperate zones, where climatic conditions necessitate active exercise and where the necessities of life can only be obtained by the hardest kind of labor. The climate of the tropics, on the other hand, is very generous to man. The forests are rich in fruit yielding trees which Nature plants, which receive little or no care, yet which bear fruit throughout the year. Wherever the cocoa-palm grows in abundance, there can be no famine, because this tree yields a rich harvest of nutritious fruit from one end of the year to the other without fail, as it is never affected to any considerable extent by drouth and other conditions which so often bring failure to the orchards in more temperate climates. The continuous summer and the wonderful fertility of the soil in tropic and subtropic countries reward richly the labor of the husbandman by two and sometimes three harvests a year, as nature's forces require no rest, no slumber there.