MARQUESAS ISLANDS

MARQUESAS ISLANDS, a group of 13 small volcanic mountainous islands in the S. Pacific, 3600 m. W. of Peru, under French protection since 1842, are peopled by a handsome but savage race, which is rapidly dying out; Chinese immigrants grow cotton; the more southerly were discovered by Mendaña in 1595, the more northerly by Ingraham, an American, in 1791.