of the rocks, the hills, the mountains, the valleys, and every natural object by which the rising settlement was surrounded. The chiefs vied with each other in the size, elevation, or conveniences of their houses: some being, like Pohuetea's and Teriitaria's, built upon a pier in the sea; others preparing to attach verandas, by which they could remain cool under a meridian sun; others erected rude covered balconies, in which they might enjoy a more extended prospect, be shaded from the sun, and breathe purer air. The rustic palm-leaf thatch, and beautifully white plastered walls, of all the buildings, whether standing on the sea-beach, on the mountain's side, embowered under the bread-fruit and cocoa-nut grove, or situated in the midst of their plantations, with a walk strewed with fragments of coral and shells leading from the road to the door, appeared in delightful contrast with the thick dark foliage of the trees, the perpetual luxuriance of vegetation, and the variegated blossoms of the native flowers.

The duration of the buildings was in general according to the nature of the thatch; the same house frequently received two or three new roofs, and if the frame was well put together, and the timber seasoned, a plastered cottage would probably last ten or fifteen years. Many, however, from the rude and hurried manner in which they were built, became dilapidated in a much shorter period.

While individuals and families were thus engaged in the erection of their domestic habitations, the people of the island were occupied in raising a spacious and substantial chapel. They commenced it in the beginning of 1819, and completed it early in the following

year. It was one hundred feet long, and sixty wide.

The sides were fourteen or sixteen feet high, and the centre not less than thirty. The walls were plastered within and without. The roof was covered with pandanus leaves, the windows closed with sliding shutters, and the doors hung with iron hinges of native workmanship. Altogether, the building was finished in a manner highly creditable to their public spirit, skill, and persevering industry. All classes cheerfully united in the work, and the king of the island-assisted by his only son, a youth about seventeen years of agemight be seen every day directing and encouraging those employed in the different parts of the building, or working themselves with the plane or the chisel, in the midst of their chiefs and subjects.

The interior of the roof was remarkable for the neatness of its appearance, and the ingenuity of its structure. The long rafters, formed with slender cocoanut, casuarina, or hibiscus trees, were perfectly straight, and polished at the upper end. The lower extremities were ornamented with finely-woven variegated matting, or curiously braided cord, stained with brilliant red or black and yellow native colours, ingeniously wound round the polished wood, exhibiting a singularly neat and chequered appearance. The ornament on the rafter terminated in a graceful fringe or bunch of tassels.

The pulpit, situated at a short distance from the northern end, was hexagonal, and supported by six pillars of the beautiful wood of the pua, beslaria laurifolia of Parkinson, which resembles, in its grain and colour, the finest satin-wood. The pannels were of rich yellow bread-fruit, and the frame of mero, thespesia populnea, a beautiful fine-grained, dark, chestnut-coloured

wood. The stairs, reading-desk, and communion table, were all of deep umber-coloured bread-fruit; and the whole, as a specimen of workmanship, was such as the native carpenters were not ashamed of. The floor was boarded with thick sawn planks, or split trees; and, although it exhibited great variety of timber and skill, was by no means contemptible.

According to ancient usage in the erection of public buildings, the work had been divided among the different chiefs of the islands; these had apportioned their respective allotments among their peasantry or dependants, and thus each party had distinct portions of the wall, the roof, and the floor. The numbers employed rendered these allotments but small, seldom more than three or six feet in length, devolving on one or two families. This, when finished, they considered their own part of the chapel; and near the part of the wall they had built, and the side of the roof they had thatched, they usually fitted up their sittings. The principal chiefs, however, fixed their seats around the pulpit, that they might have every facility of hearing.

Uniformity was as deficient in the sittings of the chapel, as in the houses of the town, each family fitting up their own according to their inclination or ability. For a considerable extent around the pulpit, the seats were in the form of low boarded pews neatly finished. Behind them appeared a kind of open, or trellis-work line of pews, which were followed by several rows of benches with backs; and, still more remote from the pulpit, what might be called free or unappropriated sittings, were solid benches or forms, without any support for the back or arms.

The colour and the kind of wood, used in the interior,

was as diversified as the forms in which it was employed; it was, nevertheless, only when empty, that its irregularity and grotesque variety appeared. When well filled with respectably dressed and attentive worshippers, as it generally was on the Sabbath, the difference in the material or structure of the places they occupied, was not easily noticed.

A remarkably ingenious and durable low fence, called by the natives aumoa, was erected round it, and the area within the enclosure was covered with small fragments of white branching coral, called anaana, and found on the northern shores of the bay.

In the month of April, 1820, it was finished, and on the 3d of May I had the pleasure of opening it for Divine service.

A distressing epidemic had raged for some time among the people, and still confined many to their habitations, yet there were not fewer than fifteen hundred present. Many of them were arrayed in light European dresses, and all evidently appeared to feel a high degree of satisfaction in assembling for the public adoration of the Almighty in a building, in many respects an object of astonishment through the island, and which their own toil and perseverance had enabled them to finish.

Individuals in England, who have materially contributed by personal exertions or pecuniary aid to the erection or enlargement of a church or chapel, have, when the object of their solicitude and their toil has been accomplished, experienced emotions of satisfaction during the subsequent opportunities they have had of rendering divine homage there; but the satisfaction of the Tahitians, though the same in kind, I am disposed to believe is stronger in degree, when standing on the floor,

the trees constituting which, they cut down in the forestwhen skreened from the wind by that portion of the wall their own hands reared-and covered by that section of the roof which they had thatched.

While the inhabitants of Huahine were thus laudably engaged in providing the means of increasing their domestic enjoyments, and accommodating the assemblies for public worship; their neighbours in the adjacent island of Raiatea were not behind them in the rapidity of their improvement. They had erected a number of dwellinghouses, and a building for divine service, larger than that at Huahine, but inferior in elevation and breadth; being forty-two feet wide, and at the sides about ten feet high. It was finished a week or two earlier than the chapel in Huahine, and was opened on the 11th of April in the same year; when upwards of 2400 inhabitants of that and the adjacent islands assembled within its walls.

To the natives of Raiatea, this work of their own hands appeared a wonderful specimen of architecture; and the manner in which its interior was finished perfectly astonished them, and appeared no less surprising to the natives of the other islands. It was not only furnished with a pulpit, a desk, a boarded floor throughout, constructed of the tough planks of the reva, or (galaxa sparta,) and filled with pews and seats, but, by the invention and ingenuity of the Missionaries, it was subsequently furnished with a rustic set of chandeliers.

By this contrivance it could be lighted up for an evening congregation, while we were under the necessity of concluding all our public services before the sun departed. These chandeliers, as they may perhaps with propriety be called, were not indeed of curious work.. manship or dazzling brilliancy, in polished metal or cut