O TAHAITI.
O TAHAITI.
This beautiful island, so richly endowed by nature with every thing that its simple and innocent natives can require for the enjoyment of existence, was perhaps first seen by the Spanish voyager Quiras, when, in the year 1606, he made an expedition from Lima, "to win," as a countryman of his expresses it, "souls for Heaven, and kingdoms for Spain." Since, however, the position pointed out by him is extremely incorrect, it is uncertain whether the island which he called Sagittaria was really O Tahaiti or not. More probably, the honour of the discovery belongs to the English Captain Wallis, who in the year 1767 landed there, and took possession of the country by a solemn declaration, in the name of his King. As, however, the Tahaitians did not understand him, this act remained unknown to them; and, notwithstanding a subsequent renewal, has fallen into oblivion. Captain Wallis gave it the name of King George the Third's Island.
Eight months after him, the French Captain Bougainville visited it; and not knowing that Captain Wallis had been there before him, considered himself the first discoverer, and called it, from the most remarkable custom of the natives, Nouvelle Cythère, but heard that they themselves called it Tahaiti, or with the article, O Tahaiti; and this name it has retained.
The celebrated Englishman, Cook, stopped there in each of his three voyages, between the years 1769 and 1778. He remained much longer in communication with the inhabitants than any of his predecessors had done; brought back Omai, to whom in London it had been attempted to give an European education, to his native land, and made use of the narrations he obtained from him during the voyage. Since that time, Cook and his companions, particularly the two Forsters, father and son, have given us considerable information concerning the condition of the Tahaitians before their conversion to the Christian faith.
To estimate the effect of this great change, we must compare Christian Tahaiti as it now is, with the accounts these early voyagers have left us of its heathen times; and as every reader may not be conveniently able to do so, a short review of them may not be considered unwelcome.
The Society Islands, of which Tahaiti is the largest, are, like many others, either fragments of a Southern continent swallowed up by earthquake, or a mass of rock ejected from the bottom of the sea by subterranean fire, which gradually becoming covered with a fertile soil, is now adorned by the most beautiful vegetation. It consists of two peninsulas united by a narrow isthmus, which together are about one hundred and twenty miles in circumference; towards the centre of each rise wild rocky mountains, intersected by deep ravines, from the side of which, thickly wooded almost to their summits, flow numerous streamlets of pure transparent water, forming the most picturesque cascades as they descend from every direction into the sea. The high mountains are uninhabited, and the settlements made only in the valleys, more especially in the low land between the mountains and the sea-shore.
In these charming amphitheatrical landscapes, their houses, consisting only of roofs resting on stakes, surrounded and shaded by bananas, bread-fruit and cocoa-trees, are scattered at small distances from each other.