four years; but when that does take place, they are fed upon 'popoe,'
made of ripe plantains and boiled taro-root rubbed into a paste. Mr.
Collie, the surgeon of the _Blossom_, remarks that nothing is more
extraordinary, in the history of the island, than the uniform good
health of the children; the teething is easily got over, they have no
bowel complaints, and are exempt from those contagious diseases which
affect children in large communities. He offered to vaccinate the
children as well as all the grown persons; but they deemed the risk of
infection of small-pox to be too small to render that operation
necessary.

As a proof how very much simple diet and constant exercise tend to the
healthful state of the body, the skin of these people, though in such
robust health, compared with that of the Europeans, always felt cold,
and their pulses always considerably lower. The doctor examined several
of them: in the forenoon he found George Young's only sixty; three
others, in the afternoon, after dinner, were sixty-eight, seventy-two,
and seventy-six, while those of the officers who stood the heat of the
climate best were above eighty.

It is impossible not to feel a deep interest in the welfare of this
little society, and at the same time an apprehension that something may
happen to disturb that harmony and destroy that simplicity of manners
which have hitherto characterized it. It is to be feared, indeed, that
the seeds of discord are already sown. It appears from Captain
Waldegrave's statement, that no less than three Englishmen have found
their way into this happy society. One of them, John Buffet, mentioned
by Beechey, is a harmless man, and, as it has been stated, of great use
to the islanders in his capacity of clergyman and schoolmaster; he is
also a clever and useful mechanic, as a ship-wright and joiner, and is
much beloved by the community. Two others have since been left on the
island, one of them, by name John Evans, son of a coachmaker in the
employ of Long of St. Martin's Lane, who has married a daughter of John
Adams, through whom he possesses and cultivates a certain portion of
land; the third is George Hunn Nobbs, who calls himself pastor,
registrar, and schoolmaster, thus infringing on the privileges of John
Buffet; and being a person of superior talents, and of exceeding great
impudence, has deprived Buffet of a great number of his scholars; and
hence a sufficient cause exists of division and dissensio