In Tahiti, the people have nothing to do; and idleness, everywhere, is
the parent of vice. "There is scarcely anything," says the good old
Quaker Wheeler, "so striking, or pitiable, as their aimless,
nerveless mode of spending life."

Attempts have repeatedly been made to rouse them from their
sluggishness; but in vain. Several years ago, the cultivation of
cotton was introduced; and, with their usual love of novelty, they
went to work with great alacrity; but the interest excited quickly
subsided, and now, not a pound of the article is raised.

About the same time, machinery for weaving was sent out from London;
and a factory was started at Afrehitoo, in Imeeo. The whiz of the
wheels and spindles brought in volunteers from all quarters, who
deemed it a privilege to be admitted to work: yet, in six months, not
a boy could be hired; and the machinery was knocked down, and packed
off to Sydney.

It was the same way with the cultivation of the sugar-cane, a plant
indigenous to the island; peculiarly fitted to the soil and climate,
and of so excellent a quality that Bligh took slips of it to the West
Indies. All the plantations went on famously for a while; the natives
swarming in the fields like ants, and making a prodigious stir. What
few plantations now remain are owned and worked by whites; who would
rather pay a drunken sailor eighteen or twenty Spanish dollars a
month, than hire a sober native for his "fish and tarro."

It is well worthy remark here, that every evidence of civilization
among the South Sea Islands directly pertains to foreigners; though
the fact of such evidence existing at all is usually urged as a proof