3. The improvement of the agriculture of the Sandwich Islands is going on steadily. Silk and sugar are beginning to be grown; and a healthier trade is replacing the sandal-wood monopolies.
I have admitted the previous notice of the character of Hawaiian civilization for the sake of comparing it with the present state and actual prospects of the islands. Cook, when he visited them, put the population at four hundred thousand--an exaggeration. Perhaps it came to half as much. In 1832 and 1836, there were censuses; of which the result was as follows:--
NAME. AREA. 1832. 1836. Hawaii 4,600 45,792 39,364 Mowee 620 35,062 24,199 Lanai 100 1,600 1,200 Molokoi 190 6,600 6,000 Kakoolawe 60 80 80 Woahoo 530 29,755 27,809 Kanai 500 10,977 8,934 Niihau 90 1,047 995 ----- ------- ------- Whole group 6,090 130,313 108,579 ------ ------- -------
This gives us a reduction; a reduction which has increased by 1840. This, I suppose, is the one from which Prichard takes his numbers, for two of the islands--
Emigration will not account for this decrease. This we may see at once, from the proportion in 1840--the figures and reasoning are Sir G. Simpson's--in the single island of Kanai, between that part of the population which was under, and that part which was above, eighteen years of age.
1ST DISTRICT. 2ND. DO. 3RD DO. 4TH DO. Under eighteen 706 309 372 685 Above eighteen 2,229 1,043 1,178 2,134 ------ ------ ------ ------ Total 2,935 1,352 1,550 2,819 ------ ------ ----- ------
"Here," Sir G. Simpson continues, "is an average of one person under eighteen, to rather more than three persons above it--a state of things which would carry depopulation written on its very face, unless every creature, without exception, were to attain the good old age of seventy-five." To this we add a remark upon the bearing of the early period of marriages throughout Polynesia. Not _one_--but _two_--generations are included in the population under eighteen years; since before that time boys and girls have begun to have boys and girls of their own.
This disproportion accounts for the decrease. But what accounts for the disproportion?
In 1824, Mr. Stuart wrote that--"in those parts of the islands where the influence of the mission had not extended, two-thirds of the infants born perish by the hands of their own parents before attaining the first or second year of their age."