PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION IN POLYNESIA. [From the Sydney Herald, June 12.]

Daily Southern Cross, Volume XII, Issue 837, 6 July 1855, Page 3

PROGRESS OF CIVILIZATION IN POLYNESIA. [From the Sydney Herald, June 12.]

The following interesting review of the progress of civilization among the inhabitants- of the islands of the Pacific, is extracted from the "Circumnavigation of the Globe," one of the volumes of the " Ediuburgh Cabinet Library." While so many advantages have accrued to the civilised world from the Voyages of Cook, the countries and nations which he made* known have likewise reaped a. rich harvest of benefit ; and it is consolatory to reflect, that the fears which troubled his benevolent mind iest the islander* of the Austral Ocean might have "just cause to lament that our ships had ever found them out," have not been realised. The labours of the good and pious men who sailed in the ship Duff, to spread the glad tidings of salvation among " the isles of the sea," though long unsuccessful, have at length baen o 'owned •with a prosperous issu . Throughout the principal groups of the Pacific, idolatry has been over thrown, and along with it the darker crimes and mo.c brutal vices of the natives. Those desolating wars, in which mercy was altogether unknown, and neither sex nor age was a protection from the exterminating fury of the victors, have ceased. The barbarous sacrifices of human beings, and the still more sanguinary usage of infanticide, wkich prevailed to an extent almost incredible, have been abolished. Peace, order, and tranqui'lity, are established ; n»t a few of the customs and comforts of Europe introduced : schools and churches erected ; and a knowledge of letters extt? - sively diffused. A printing-press has been established in the Society Islands, from which a translation of the New Testament into the native language, a number of initiatory treatises, and a code of laws ratified by the nation, have already issued. Many of the inhabitant* have made so great progress in learning, that they ha>ebeen able to take on themselves the character of missionaries, and go forth to preach the Gospel to their benighted brethren in less favoured places. Others have acquired the arts of the smith, the mason, the weaver, the cotton-spinner, the turner, the agricu'. turist, or the carpenter. In the tr .de last mentioned they have made such proficiency as to build »fter the English styla vessels of seventy tons burden, for commercial enterprises to different parts of Polynesia. The people of the Sandwich Archipelago have advanced still farther in civilization. The Bay of Honolulu, in the island of Woahoo, almost resembles an European harbour. Fifty foreign vessels have been irt tat one time. In the latter part of the y«ar 1838, it was resorted to by more than twenty-six thousand tons of shipping, employing upwards of two thousand seamen, and bearing the flags of England, Prussia, Spain, America, and " Otaheite. It is defended by a fortress mounting forty guns, over which, and from the masta of the native barks, is suspended the national ensign, which already has been seen in the ports of China, the Philippines, America, Kamtschatka, the New Hebrides, and Australia. The town is regularly laid out in. squares, the streets are carefully fenced, and numbers of the houses are neatly built of wood. It possesses a regular police, contains two hotels, the same number of billiard-rooms, and nearly a dozen taverns, bearing such inscriptions as "An ordinary at one o'clock," " the Britannia," and " the Jolly Tar." It is the residence of a British and of an American consul, anc< J if several respectable merchants of the United States. Education and a knowledge of religion are widely spread throughout the islands ; nine hundred seminaries, conducted by native teachers, are established, and fi.ty thous md children receive instruction iv reading. Within a little distance of the very epot where Cook was killed, a school has been opened, and a building erected for the -worship of the true God. The fortune°of some others of the countries explored by hiia has l.isherto been less auspicious ; but in most of them, missions are already planted with every prospect of success, and we may confidently look forward to the day when teachers of Christianity shall be established in all. It may be Baid, indeed, that in almost every quarter of Polynesia the seeds of civilization are now sown, and it is a plant (as has been remarked) which seldom withers or decays, however slowly it may advance in growth. The hopes, therefore, (jan hardly be considered visionary which have been expressed by a late distinguished voyager, who, in sailing along the shores of New Zealand, anticipated the period when that magnificent country shall become the Great Britain of the southern hemisphere, when its now solitary plains shall be covered with large and populous cities, and the bays which are at present frequented but by the frail canoe of the wandering savage, shall be thronged .with the commercial navies of empires situated at the opposite ends of the earth. When that day shall arrive, and the fertile islands of the Pacific become the seats of great, and flourishing States, we may conficently predict that Cook will be revered, not with the blind ador.tf.ion offered to the fancied Bono, but with the national respoct and affection due by an enlightened people to him who was the harbinger of their civilization; and that among the great and good men, commemorated in their annals as national benefactors, none will be more highly extolled than the illustrious navigator who, surmounting the dangers and difficulties of unknown seas, laid open the path by which the benefits of knowledge and the blessings of religion wcrt wafted to their distant shores.