of what we generally consider low grades of civilization.  Tahiti, according to all who have visited it, from the earliest explorers down to that distinguished American surgeon, the late Dr. Nicholas Senn, is an island possessing qualities of natural beauty and climatic excellence, which it is impossible to rate too highly.  “I seemed to be transported into the garden of Eden,” said Bougainville in 1768.  But, mainly under the influence of the early English missionaries who held ideas of theoretical morality totally alien to those of the inhabitants of the islands, the Tahitians have become the stock example of a population given over to licentiousness and all its awful results.  Thus, in his valuable Polynesian Researches (second edition, 1832, vol. i, Ch.  IX) William Ellis says that the Tahitians practiced “the worst pollutions of which it was possible for man to be guilty,” though not specifying them.  When, however, we carefully examine the narratives of the early visitors to Tahiti, before the population became contaminated by contact with Europeans, it becomes clear that this view needs serious modification.  “The great plenty of good and nourishing food,” wrote an early explorer, J.R.  Forster (Observations Made on a Voyage Round the World, 1778, pp. 231, 409, 422), “together with the fine climate, the beauty and unreserved behavior of their females, invite them powerfully to the enjoyments and pleasures of love.  They begin very early to abandon themselves to the most libidinous scenes.  Their songs, their dances, and dramatic performances, breathe a spirit of luxury.”  Yet he is over and over again impelled to set down facts which bear testimony to the virtues of these people.  Though rather effeminate in build, they are athletic, he says.  Moreover, in their wars they fight with great bravery and valor.  They are, for the rest, hospitable.  He remarks that they treat their married women with great respect, and that women generally are nearly the equals of men, both in intelligence and in social position; he gives a charming description of the women.  “In short, their character,” Forster concludes, “is as amiable as that of any nation that ever came unimproved out of the hands of Nature,” and he remarks that, as was felt by the South Sea peoples generally, “whenever we came to this happy island we could evidently perceive the opulence and happiness of its inhabitants.”  It is noteworthy also, that, notwithstanding the high importance which the Tahitians attached to the erotic side of life, they were not deficient in regard for chastity.  When Cook, who visited Tahiti many times, was among “this benevolent humane” people, he noted their esteem for chastity, and found that not only were betrothed girls strictly guarded before marriage, but that men also who had refrained from sexual intercourse for some time before marriage were believed to pass at death immediately into the abode of the blessed.  “Their behavior, on all occasions, seems to indicate