and, proceeding onward with the tide of commerce that rolled round the world, the progress of discovery and science penetrating every remote, inhospitable section of our globe; the Bible and the Missionary had not been sent. Had Cowper witnessed these operations of Christian benevolence, how he would have cheered, with his own numbers, those who had gone out from Britain, and other lands, not only to civilize, but to attempt the moral renovation of the heathen world.

The regularly framed and plastered chapels in Huahine and Raiatea were of the first kind in the Leeward or Windward Islands; they were not, however, the only large buildings erected for public worship. Pomare had, ever since our arrival, been engaged in preparing materials, and erecting a chapel, at Papaoa, by far the largest ever built in the islands; it had been opened twelve months before those in the Leeward Islands were finished.

This building, which is called the Royal Mission Chapel, is certainly, when we consider the imperfect skill of the artificers, the rude nature of their tools, the amazing quantity of materials used, and the manner in which its workmanship is completed, an astonishing structure. It is seven hundred and twelve feet in length, and fifty-four wide. Thirty-six massy cylindrical pillars of the bread-fruit tree sustain the centre of the roof, and two hundred and eighty smaller ones, of the same material, support the wall-plate along the sides, and around the circular ends, of the building. The sides or walls around are composed of planks of the breadfruit tree, fixed perpendicularly in square sleepers. The whole, either smoothed with a carpenter's plane, or polished, according to the practice of the natives, by

rubbing the timber with smooth coral and sand. One hundred and thirty-three windows or apertures, furnished with sliding shutters, admit both light and air, and twenty-nine doors afford ingress and egress to the congregation. The building was covered with the leaves of the pandanus, enclosed with a strong and neat, low aumoa, or boarded fence; and the area within the enclosure was filled with basaltic pebbles, or broken coral. The roof was too low, and the width and elevation of the building too disproportioned to its length, to allow of its appearing either stupendous or magnificent.

The interior of this spacious structure was at once singular and striking. The bottom was covered in the native fashion with long grass, and, with the exception of a small space around each pulpit, was filled with plain, but substantial forms or benches. The rafters were bound with curiously-braided cord, coloured in native dyes, or covered nearly to the top of the roof with finely-woven matting, made of the white bark of the purau, or hibiscus, and often presenting a chequered mixture of opposite colours, by no means unpleasing to the eye. The end of the matting usually hung down from the upper part of the rafter three, six, or nine feet, and terminated in a fine broad fringe or border.

The most singular circumstance, however, connected with the interior of the Royal Mission Chapel, is the number of pulpits. There are no fewer than three. They are nearly two hundred and sixty feet apart, but without any partition between. The east and west pulpits are about a hundred feet from the corresponding extremities of the chapel. They are substantially built, and though destitute of any thing very elegant

in shape or execution, answer exceedingly well the purpose for which they were erected.

This immense building was opened for divine service on the 11th of May, 1819, when the encampment of the multitudes assembled stretched along the sea-beach, on both sides of the chapel, to the extent of four miles. On this occasion, three distinct sermons, from different. texts, were preached at the same time, to three distinct congregations. Each audience, consisted of upwards of two thousand hearers, assembled round the respective pulpits within the same building. The king and principal chiefs appeared at the east, which, contrary to the order observed in their antipodes, is considered the court end. The whole number of hearers, according to the nearest calculation, was about seven thousand; and, notwithstanding this number assembled, a space remained between the different congregations.

I have occasionally preached in the Royal Mission chapel, but never when any other person besides was engaged; consequently, I cannot say what effect is produced on the ear by the delivery of more than one discourse at the same time. In the account the Missionaries give of its opening, they say, the pulpits being at so great a distance from each other, no confusion ensued from the speakers preaching at once in the same house. To an individual who could have stood at one end of the building, a little above the assembly, and directed his glance to the other-the three pulpits and preachers— the seven thousand hearers assembled around in all the variety, and form, and colour of their different costume-must have presented an imposing and interesting spectacle.

Although divested of every thing like stateliness or

grandeur, the first visit I paid to the chapel left a strong impression on my mind. I entered from the west; and the perspective of a vista, extending upwards of seven hundred feet, partially illuminated by the bright glow of strong noon-day light entering through the windows, which were opened at distant intervals, along the lengthened line of pillars that supported the rafters-the clean rustic appearance of the grass-spread floor-the uniformity of the simple and rude forms extending thoughout the whole building-the pulpits raised above them Besides -heightened the effect of the perspective. these, the singular, novel, light, waving, and not inelegant adornments of the roof, all combined to increase the effect. The reflections also associated with the purpose for which it had been erected, and the recent events in the history of the people, whose first national Christian temple we were visiting, awakened a train of solemn and grateful emotions. How it might be when the house was filled, I do not know; but when empty, the human voice could be distinctly heard from one end to the other, without any great effort on the part of those who at this distance called or answered.

A long aisle or passage, between the forms, extends from one end to the other. In walking along this aisle on my first visit, I was surprised to see a watercourse five or six feet wide, crossing, in an oblique direction, the floor of the chapel. On inquiry of the people who accompanied our party, they said it was a natural watercourse from the mountains to the sea; and that, as they could not divert its channel so as to avoid the building without great additional labour, and constant apprehension of its returning, they had judged it best to make a grating at each side under the wall, and allow it to

pass in its accustomed channel. As it was not during the rainy season that we were there, it was dry; the sides were walled, and the bottom neatly paved; but in the rainy season, when the water is constantly flowing through, its effect must be rather singular on the minds of those sitting near it during public worship.

One end of the building was used by the inhabitants for divine service every Sabbath; the other parts are only occupied at the annual meetings of the Tahitian Missionary Society, or on similar occasions, when large national assemblies are convened. In 1822, when I last visited it, the roof had already begun to decay. The labour of keeping so large a place in repair, would be very great; and the occasions for its use so seldom occur, that, no repairs have been made since the king's death; and the exposure being constant, it will not probably last many years longer. The texture of the palmleaves composing the thatch, is not such as to resist for any protracted period the intense heat of the climate; and the heavy rains accelerate its destruction.

It has appeared matter of surprise to many, that the natives should desire, or the Missionaries recommend, the erection of such large places of worship; and I have often been asked, how we came to build such immense houses. The Royal Chapel at Papaoa, however, is the only one of the kind in the islands. It originated entirely with the king, and in its erection the Missionaries took no part. The king, determined in his purpose, levied a requisition for materials and labour on the chiefs and people of Tahiti and Eimeo-by whose combined efforts it was ultimately finished. The Missionaries were far from approving of the scale on which Pomare was proceeding; and, on more than one occasion, some of them