All that I could make out of this strange ceremony was that the Arreoys are highly respected and that the society is chiefly composed of men distinguished by their valour or some other merit, and that great trust and confidence is reposed in them; but I could not comprehend what this had to do with my children or why it should be imagined that an offering made on their account to a society of men who destroy all their children should be propitious.  I learnt from Tinah, in talking about his children, that his first-born child was killed as soon as it came into the world, he being then an Arreoy; but before his second child was born he quitted the society.  The Arreoys are allowed great latitude in their amours except in times of danger.  Then as they are almost all fighting men (tata toa) they are restricted that they may not weaken or enervate themselves.

These ceremonies being ended I returned to the ship.

Such of the natives as I conversed with about the institution of so extraordinary a society as the Arreoy asserted that it was necessary to prevent an overpopulation.  Worrow worrow no te mydidde, worrow worrow te tata.  We have too many children and too many men was their constant excuse.  Yet it does not appear that they are apprehensive of too great an increase of the lower class of people, none of them being ever admitted into the Arreoy society.  The most remarkable instance related to me of the barbarity of this institution was of Teppahoo, the Earee of the district of Tettaha, and his wife, Tetteehowdeeah, who is sister to Otow and considered as a person of the first consequence.  I was told that they have had eight children, every one of which was destroyed as soon as born.  That any human beings were ever so devoid of natural affection as not to wish to preserve alive one of so many children is not credible.  It is more reasonable to conclude that the death of these infants was not an act of choice in the parents; but that they were sacrificed in compliance with some barbarous superstition with which we are unacquainted.  What strengthens this conjecture is that they have adopted a nephew as their heir, of whom they are excessively fond.

In countries so limited as the islands in the South Seas, the natives of which, before they were discovered by European navigators, probably had not an idea of the existence of other lands, it is not unnatural that an increasing population should occasion apprehensions of universal distress.  Orders of celibacy which have proved so prejudicial in other countries might perhaps in this have been beneficial; so far at least as to have answered their purpose by means not criminal.  The number of inhabitants at Otaheite have been estimated at above one hundred thousand.  The island however is not cultivated to the greatest advantage:  yet were they continually to improve in husbandry their improvement could not for a length of time keep pace with an unlimited population.