d in the army
of Xerxes.

"I have devoted two long examinations to another black race much less
important in numbers and in the extent of their domain, but which
possess for the anthropologist a very peculiar interest and a sad one.
It exists no more; its last representative, a woman, died in 1877. I
refer to the Tasmanians.

"The documents gathered by various English writers, and above all by
Bouwick, give numerous facts upon the intellectual and moral character
of the Tasmanians. The complete destruction of the Tasmanians,
accomplished in at most 72 years over a territory measuring 4,400
square leagues, raises a sorrowful and difficult question. Their
extinction has been explained by the barbarity of the civilized
Europeans, and which, often conspicuous, has never been more
destructively present than in their dealings with the Tasmanians. But
I am convinced that this is an error. I certainly do not wish to
apologize for or extenuate the crimes of the convicts and colonists,
against which the most vigorous protests have been raised both in
England and in the colony itself, but neither war nor social disasters
have been the principal cause of the disappearance of the Tasmanians.
They have perished from that strange malady which Europeans have
everywhere transplanted in the maritime world, and which strikes down
the most flourishing populations.

"Consumption is certainly one of the elements of this evil. But if it
explains the increase of the death rate, it does not explain the
diminution of births. Both these phenomena are apparent. Captain Juan
has seen at the Marquesas, in the island of Taio-Hahe, the population
fall in three years from 400 souls to 250. To offset this death-rate,
we find only 3 or 4 births. It is evident that at this rate
populations rapidly disappear, and it is the principal cause of the
disappearance of the Tasmanians."

The lecturer, after alluding to his studies in Polynesia, speaks of
his interest in the western representatives of these races and his
special studies in New Zealand, and referring to the latter continues:

"One of the most important results of the labors in this direction has
been to establish the serious value of the historical songs preserved,
among the Maoris, by the _Tohungus_, or _wise men_, who represent the
_Aiepas_ of Tahiti. Thanks to these living archives, we have been able
to reconstruct a history of the natives, to fix almost the epoch of
the first arrival of t