feasts, and, so soon as the fire of life went out upon the hearth,
swarmed back into possession of their ancient seat?

I speak by guess of these Marquesan superstitions. On the cannibal
ghost I shall return elsewhere with certainty. And it is enough,
for the present purpose, to remark that the men of the Marquesas,
from whatever reason, fear and shrink from the presence of ghosts.
Conceive how this must tell upon the nerves in islands where the
number of the dead already so far exceeds that of the living, and
the dead multiply and the living dwindle at so swift a rate.
Conceive how the remnant huddles about the embers of the fire of
life; even as old Red Indians, deserted on the march and in the
snow, the kindly tribe all gone, the last flame expiring, and the
night around populous with wolves.



CHAPTER V--DEPOPULATION



Over the whole extent of the South Seas, from one tropic to
another, we find traces of a bygone state of over-population, when
the resources of even a tropical soil were taxed, and even the
improvident Polynesian trembled for the future. We may accept some
of the ideas of Mr. Darwin's theory of coral islands, and suppose a
rise of the sea, or the subsidence of some former continental area,
to have driven into the tops of the mountains multitudes of
refugees. Or we may suppose, more soberly, a people of sea-rovers,
emigrants from a crowded country, to strike upon and settle island