This is the way in which the admixture of foreign blood takes place within the island itself. But it is not the only way. The Sandwich Islanders are themselves emigrants, and they are found upon the opposite coast of America; thus giving admixture to the Californian and Oregon Indians. They do the same in South America on the coast of Peru and Ecuador.

It is this determination of the Sandwich Islands to America, that gives us the phænomenon of the American and Oceanic admixture—a new and imperfectly studied form of union.

This dispersion of the Sandwich Islanders tells a story on more matters than one. It speaks to their enterprize, maritime capacity, and value as industrial assistants. This is what they are at home, and this is what they are abroad.

Since the discovery of the Sandwich Islands by Cook, the three great influences that have been at work, are—

  1. The wars, and policy of Kamehamehu.
  2. Missionary influences.
  3. Commercial and political influences.

1. At the accession of Kamehamehu, as now, the system of caste that determines the social state of New Zealand, Tahiti, and other parts of Polynesia, regulated that of the Sandwich group. The chiefs, however, held but nominally under the sovereign. Each in his own island, was practically an independent ruler. The wars of Kamehamehu coerced the chiefs of the smaller islands, and left him the sovereign of a consolidated empire. This he administered in the spirit of a Pagan, and a conqueror. Of the god of the volcano and earthquake that had helped him to his early victories, he lived and died the constant worshipper and support.

By the further favour of the same, he hoped to reduce the Tahitian group; an idea that raises his assemblage of canoes to the dignity of a fleet. At any rate, the force for land, and the force for sea underwent an incipient organization in the reign of Kamehamehu.

Then again, he was not only a great merchant, but the only great merchant in his dominions. The chief export was the sandal-wood, which, bearing a high price in the China market, and growing chiefly on the more inaccessible mountains, could only be collected at the expense of grinding labour, and fatal suffering as the portion of the helot population. This decimated the islands as much, or even more, than his wars.

At the death of Kamehamehu a weak tyranny succeeded a strong one. The monopoly of the sandal-wood was divided between the chiefs; and the multitude of masters increased the amount of suffering. I am writing from what I find in Sir G. Simpson, and add that the extremes of bloodshed and oppression brought with them their own remedy. The coercion was too successful to leave an enemy to fight against; and the sandal-wood became too nearly exhausted to command its previous price of life and labour.