I spent one evening, as had been my custom, at the oven with the
Sandwich Islanders; but it was far from being the usual noisy,
laughing time. It has been said, that the greatest curse to each of
the South Sea islands, was the first man who discovered it; and
every one who knows anything of the history of our commerce in those
parts, knows how much truth there is in this; and that the white
men, with their vices, have brought in diseases before unknown to
the islanders, and which are now sweeping off the native population of
the Sandwich Islands, at the rate of one fortieth of the entire
population annually. They seem to be a doomed people. The curse of a
people calling themselves Christian, seems to follow them
everywhere; and even here, in this obscure place, lay two young
islanders, whom I had left strong, active young men, in the vigor of
health, wasting away under a disease, which they would never have
known but for their intercourse with Christianized Mexico and people
from Christian America. One of them was not so ill; and was moving
about, smoking his pipe, and talking, and trying to keep up his
spirits; but the other, who was my friend, and Aikane- Hope, was the
most dreadful object I had ever seen in my life: his eyes sunken and
dead, his cheeks fallen in against his teeth, his hands looking like
claws; a dreadful cough, which seemed to rack his whole shattered
system, a hollow whispering voice, and an entire inability to move
himself.
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