plastered cottage, as that now occupies the place of the native hut.

The timber principally employed in their buildings, is the wood of the bread-fruit; and although they are careful of this valuable tree, it is necessary frequently to urge the duty of planting, in order to ensure a future supply not only of timber but of food, as the large trees are now comparatively few, and the population is evidently increasing.

In the commencement of a new settlement, or the establishment of a town, like that rising around us at the head of Fare harbour, we were desirous that it should assume something like a regular form, as it regarded the public buildings and habitations of the chiefs and people. We repeatedly advised the chiefs and others to build their houses and form their public roads in straight lines, and to leave regular and equal distances between the roads and the houses, and also between their respective dwellings. Our endeavours, however, were unavailing. They could perceive nothing that was either desirable or advantageous in a straight road, or regularity in the site, and uniformity in the size or shape, of their dwellings. Every one, therefore, followed his own inclinations. The size of the building was regulated by the number in the family, the rank or the means of its proprietor, and the shape by his fancy. It was oblong or square, with high gable, or circular ends covered with thatch, so that the building resembled an oval more than any other shape.

The situations selected were either parts of their own ground, or such places as accorded with their taste and habits. Those who were frequently upon the waters, and enjoyed the gentle sea-breezes, or wished to excel their neighbours, built a massy pier or causeway in the

sea, and, raising it four or five feet above high-water mark, covered it with smooth flat stones, and then erected their houses upon the spot they had thus recovered from the sea, by which it was on three sides surrounded. The labour required for effecting this, prevented any but chiefs from building in such situations. Others, actually building upon the sand, erected their dwelling upon the upper edge of the beach, within four or five yards of the rising tide.

The public road, from six to twelve feet wide, which led through the district, extending in a line parallel with the coast, presented all its curvatures. Some of the natives built their houses facing the sea; others, turning their fronts towards the mountain, reared them within five or six feet of the road; while several, of a more retiring disposition, built in the centre of their plantations, or under the embowering shade of a grove of bread-fruit trees, enclosing them within the fence that surrounded their dwelling. Some of the leading chiefs, in order to enjoy a more extensive prospect, and to breathe a purer atmosphere, left the humidity and shade of the lowland and the valley, and built their houses on the sides of the verdant hills that rise immediately behind the bay, and form the connecting link between the rocks around the beach and the high mountains of the interior.

A settlement thus formed could never possess any approximation to uniformity; and although we had endeavoured to persuade the people to render it more regular, yet it often seemed as if the variety in size and shape among the buildings, and the irregularity of their situation, was in perfect keeping with the wild, entrained luxuriant loveliness, and romantic appearance,

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 begincompleted it early in the following year. It was one hundred feet long, and sixty wide.

ning of 1819, and

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,