It may be thought extremely difficult to form any probable conjectures respecting the population of islands, with many parts of which we are but imperfectly acquainted.  There are, however, two circumstances that take away much of this objection; the first is, that the interior parts of the country are entirely uninhabited; so that, if the number of the inhabitants along the coast be known, the whole will be pretty accurately determined.  The other is, that there are no towns of any considerable size; the habitations of the natives being pretty equally dispersed in small villages round all their coasts.  It is on this ground that I shall venture at a rough calculation of the number of persons in this group of islands.

The bay of Karakakooa, in Owhyhee, is three miles in extent, and contains four villages of about eighty houses each, upon an average, in all three hundred and twenty; besides a number of straggling houses, which may make the whole amount to three hundred and fifty.  From the frequent opportunities I had of informing myself on this head, I am convinced that six persons to a house is a very moderate allowance; so that, on this calculation, the country about the bay contains two thousand one hundred souls.  To these may be added fifty families, or three hundred persons, which I conceive to be nearly the number employed in the interior parts of the country amongst their plantations, making in all two thousand four hundred.  If, therefore, this number be applied to the whole extent of the coast round the island, deducting a quarter for the uninhabited parts, it will be found to contain one hundred and fifty thousand.  By the same mode of calculation, the rest of the islands will be found to contain the following numbers:—­

Owhyhee 150,000
Mowee 65,400
Woahoo 60,200
Atooi 54,000
Moroloi 36,000
Oneeheow 10,000
Ranai 20,400
Preehoua 4,000

      Total of inhabitants 400,000

I am pretty confident, that in this calculation I have not exceeded the truth in the total amount.  If we compare the numbers supposed to be in Owhyhee, with the population of Otaheite, as settled by Dr. Forster, this computation will be found very low.  The proportion of coast in the latter island is to that of Owhyhee, only as one to three; the number of inhabitants at Otaheite he states to be one hundred and twenty-one thousand five hundred; though, according to his own principles, it should be double that amount.  Again, if we compare it with the medium population of the countries in Europe, the proportion will be in favour of the latter nearly as two to one.[6]