It will easily be conceived from what hath been already said that our chear upon this island was in some degree luxurious; but I have not yet recited all the varieties of provision which we here indulged in. Indeed we thought it prudent totally to abstain from fish, the few we caught at our first arrival having surfeited those who eat of them; but considering how much we had been inured to that species of food we did not regard this circumstance as a disadvantage, especially as the defect was so amply supplied by the beef, pork, and fowls already mentioned, and by great plenty of wild fowl; for it is to be remembered that near the centre of the island there were two considerable pieces of fresh water, which abounded with duck, teal, and curlew; not to mention the whistling plover, which we found there in prodigious plenty.
It may now perhaps be wondered at that an island so exquisitely furnished with the conveniencies of life, and so well adapted not only to the subsistence but likewise to the enjoyment of mankind, should be entirely destitute of inhabitants, especially as it is in the neighbourhood of other islands, which in some measure depend upon this for their support. To obviate this difficulty, I must observe that it is not fifty years since the island was depopulated. The Indians we had in our custody assured us that formerly the three islands of Tinian, Rota, and Guam were all full of inhabitants; and that Tinian alone contained thirty thousand souls: but a sickness raging amongst these islands which destroyed multitudes of the people, the Spaniards, to recruit their numbers at Guam, which were extremely diminished by the mortality, ordered all the inhabitants of Tinian thither; where, languishing for their former habitations and their customary method of life, the greatest part of them in a few years died of grief. Indeed, independent of that attachment which all mankind have ever shown to the places of their birth and bringing up, it should seem from what has been already said that there were few countries more worthy to be regretted than this of Tinian.
These poor Indians might reasonably have expected, at the great distance from Spain where they were placed, to have escaped the violence and cruelty of that haughty nation, so fatal to a large proportion of the whole human race: but it seems their remote situation could not protect them from sharing in the common destruction of the western world; all the advantage they received from their distance being only to perish an age or two later. It may perhaps be doubted if the number of the inhabitants of Tinian, who were banished to Guam, and who died there pining for their native home, was so considerable as what we have related above; but not to mention the concurrent assertion of our prisoners and the commodiousness of the island and its great fertility, there are still remains to be met with on the place which show it to have been once extremely populous. For there are in all parts of the island many ruins of a very particular kind. These usually consist of two rows of square pyramidal pillars, each pillar being about six feet from the next, and the distance between the rows being about twelve feet; the pillars themselves are about five feet square at the { 287} base, and about thirteen feet high; and on the top of each of them there is a semi-globe with the flat surface upwards; the whole of the pillars and semi-globe is solid, being composed of sand and stone cemented together and plaistered over. If the account our prisoners gave us of these structures was true, the island must indeed have been most extraordinary well peopled; since they assured us that they were the foundations of particular buildings set apart for those Indians only who had engaged in some religious vow; monastic institutions being often to be met with in many Pagan nations. However, if these ruins were originally the basis of the common dwelling-houses of the natives, their numbers must have been considerable; for in many parts of the island they are extremely thick planted, and sufficiently evince the great plenty of its former inhabitants. But to return to the present state of the island.