The people of Hawaii archipelago, where Cook lost his life, had been converted early in the nineteenth century to Christianity by missionaries, British and American. The islands were ruled in a more or less civilized fashion by a native dynasty of kings, but at the same time were increasingly settled by white men as planters and merchants. The white population became too difficult of government by these half-civilized Polynesians, a revolution was brought about, for a few years Hawaii was an independent republic administered by Americans, and finally was annexed by the United States in 1898. Consequently there remains at the present day no territory whatever in Australasia which is not under the flag of some European or American power. In Australia--which became a homogeneous state by the institution of federal government in 1900--we have the beginnings of a mighty nation; likewise in the Dominion of New Zealand, which now has a white population of over 1,000,000. New Guinea is still a land mainly inhabited by savages, and it is probable that owing to its unhealthiness it will remain more or less a domain of the black man, and the same may be the case with the Solomon Islands. But elsewhere, though the Polynesian and Melanesian peoples are far from being exterminated, they are diminishing in numbers from one cause and another, and those that survive will probably fuse in blood with the white colonists. Many of these Pacific islands are earthly paradises, so far as climate and fertility of soil are concerned. They will doubtless some day become densely inhabited, and their prosperity will justify the efforts, the sufferings, and even the crimes and mistakes of the Pioneers. _Printed and bound in Great Britain_ * * * * * Transcriber's note: Minor typographical and punctuation errors have been corrected without note. Irregularities and inconsistencies in the text have been retained as printed. The illustrations have been moved so that they do not break up paragraphs, thus the page number of the illustration might not match the page number in the List of Illustrations. Page 93: "along the coast of Patagonia (spending five months"--the transcriber has removed the ( and inserted a comma: "along the coast of Patagonia, spending five months".