d
that these curses were inflicted upon them by the God of the
foreigners and by the missionaries, who said that they were his
servant. In their misery, they not only refused to listen to the
gospels, but accused the missionaries in prayer before their own god,
begging to be saved from them. Often when the missionaries appeared
to speak to the people, the deformed and dying were brought out and
laid in rows before them, as evidences of the evilness and cruelty of
their white god.

But after one has advanced all tangible reasons and causes for the
depopulation of the Marquesas, there remains another, mysterious,
intangible, but it may be, more potent than the others. The coming
of the white has been deadly to all copper-colored races everywhere
in the world. The black, the yellow, the Malay, the Asiatic and the
negro flourish beside the white; the Polynesian and the red races of
America perished or are going fast. The numbers of those dead from
war and epidemics leave still lacking the full explanation of the
fearful facts. Seek as far as you will, pile up figures and causes
and prove them correct; there still remains to take into account the
shadow of the white on the red.

Prescott says:

The American Indian has something peculiarly sensitive in
his nature. He shrinks instinctively from the rude touch of a
foreign hand. Even when this foreign influence comes in the
form of civilization, he seems to sink and pine under it. It has
been so with the Mexicans. Under the Spanish domination
their numbers have silently melted away. Their energies are
broken. They live under a better system of laws, a more
assured tranquillity, a purer faith. But all does not avail.
Their civilization was of the hardy character that belongs to
the wilderness. Their hardy virtues were all their own. They
refused to submit to European culture--to be engrafted on a
foreign stock.

Free! Understand that well, it is the deep commandment,
dimmer or clearer, of our whole being, to be free. Freedom is
the one purpose, wisely aimed at or unwisely, of all man's
struggles, toilings, and sufferings, in this earth.

I am persuaded that the Polynesians, from Hawaii to Tahiti, are
dying because of the suppression of the play-instinct, an instinct
that had its expression in most of their customs and occupations.
Their dancing, their tattooing, their chanting, their religious rites,
and even their warfare, had very visib