Page:A Lady's Cruise in a French Man-of-War.djvu/275

Rh a succession of green waterfalls. Not that true waterfalls are lacking. On the contrary, the mountains are furrowed with deep ravines, in each one of which flows a sparkling river of clearest water, fed by countless cascades, which fall from high cliffs, and, uniting in the upper valleys, leap in rushing cataracts over the sheer precipices, by which alone they may reach the lower levels.

Six of these islands are inhabited—namely, Nukuheva, Hivaoa (commonly called Dominica), Tetuhiva, Tahuata, Uapou, and Uahuna. Of these, the principal are Nukuheva and Dominica.

The former is about 17 miles in length by 12 in breadth—the latter 20 by 7. The population of the group, which a few years ago was roughly estimated at from 15,000 to 20,000, does not now exceed 5000, of whom 3000 are the inhabitants of Dominique. On all the other islands the population was decimated about fifteen years ago by the so-called Peruvian labour trade—in other words, remorseless kidnappers. Smallpox was also introduced by foreign ships, and, as in all new countries where it breaks out for the first time, swept the isles like a consuming fire, leaving to this day the trace of its awful ravages.

It broke out in the year 1863, and quickly spread throughout the group. On the isle of Nukuheva it raged with frightful virulence, and carried off a great multitude. José, a Peruvian convert who had found his way to the Marquesas, and established himself as an evangelist, devoted himself with untiring patience and zeal to the care of the sick, whose panic-stricken friends forsook them, and left him alone to tend that terrible company of miserable sufferers. Single-handed, he buried the dead; but, thanks to his self-devotion, many recovered, and by his good influence were won from their gross cannibalism and heathenism to the faith he so nobly taught them by its practice. But just then the French authorities sold all that district to Stewart & Co., a company of English and French merchants, who converted it into cotton and coffee plantations, and José was ordered to leave!

The new-comers took possession of lands wellnigh depopulated by the terrible smallpox. Silence and desolation brooded over the