kneeled down, and uttered a short prayer." In reference to their deportment, Capt. Henry observes, "The very quiet, devout, and orderly manner in which they conducted themselves, not only in church, but during the Sabbath, excited my highest admiration.”

The open renunciation of idolatry, and the general profession of Christianity, were effected at a public festival, which occurred about four months prior to Capt. Henry's visit. All the inhabitants, with the exception of about twenty-five persons, had declared themselves desirous of Christian instruction, and every one in the island had renounced idolatry. Most of their former objects of worship were removed from the temples, and some of those mutilated stone figures were actually converted into seats or benches, at the doors of the building erected for Christian worship. The knowledge of the individual left by Pomare was very limited; his behaviour, also, was immoral; and the natives had sagacity enough to perceive that his conduct did not accord with what he taught them Christianity required; consequently, they refused to pay much attention to his instructions, but requested that proper teachers might be sent to them. In 1822, suitable teachers from Eimeo were stationed in this island; these have shewn the utmost diligence and fidelity in promoting the temporal and spiritual improvement of the people. In Jan. 1825, when visited by Messrs. Tyerman Bennet, and Henry, two large places had been erected for public worship; at the opening of one of them, 1300 persons were present.* At the same time, baptism was administered to fifty-two adults, and * Missionary Chronicle, No. 54, p. 165.

sixty children.

In the latter part of the same year, I visited Raivavai. The singular, broken, and romantic shape of the mountains, gave universal interest to the scenery; the natives were numerous, and, though uncivilized, their behaviour was neither barbarous nor repulsive. They were anxious to entertain us with hospitality and kindness, and readily conducted me to whatever was interesting in the neighbourhood. Their idols

were of stone, which appeared a kind of cellular lava, of a light ferruginous colour. They were generally rudely carved imitations of the human figure. The people appeared ingenious, patient, and industrious, and the carving of their paddles, bowls, and other domestic utensils, in the taste displayed in its devices, and the skill of its execution, surpassed any thing of the kind I have seen in the Pacific.

The teachers, Horoinuu, Ahuriro, and Tohi, gave me a very favourable account of their attention to instruction. In 1829, when they were last visited, it was found that a contagious epidemic, a kind of malignant fever, had destroyed a great portion of the inhabitants. This disease was originally brought from Tubuai, and, for a considerable time after it appeared, from ten to fifteen deaths occurred daily. If a healthy person came in contact with the body or clothes of one diseased, the malady was generally communicated. During the first stages of the progress of the disease, whole families, from attending the sick, were simultaneously attacked with the dreadful complaint, and often buried in one common grave. The visitors observe," Never have we witnessed a more melancholy spectacle; houses are left without inhabit

ants; land without owners; and that which was formerly cultivated, has now become desolate."

In 1826 Mr. Davies organized a Christian society, or church, among this people, when sixteen persons were, after due examination, united in Christian fellowship with the teachers of Eimeo who were residing among them.* Of these, twelve have died; to the survivors forty-six were added, during the time Messrs. Pritchard and Simpson remained with them, in 1829.

TUBUAI.

This island is seventeen miles nearer the equator than Raivavai, and about two degrees farther to the westward. It is situated in lat. 23. 25. S. and long. 149. 23. W. and is not more than twelve miles in circumference.

Tubuai was discovered by Cook in 1777; and, after the mutineers in the Bounty had taken possession of the vessel, and committed, to the mercy of the waves, Captain Bligh, with eighteen of his officers and men, this was the first island they visited. Hence they sailed to Tahiti, brought away the most serviceable of the live-stock left there by former navigators, and in 1789 attempted a settlement here. Misunderstandings between the mutineers and the natives, and the unbridled passions of the former, led to acts of violence, which the latter resented. A murderous battle ensued, in which nothing but superior skill and fire-arms, together with the advantages of a rising ground, saved the mutineers from destruction. Two were wounded, and numbers of the natives slain. This led them to abandon the island; and after revisiting Tahiti, and leaving a part of their *Missionary Report, 1827, p. 29.

number there, they made their final settlement im Pictairn's island. Their attempt to settle in Tubuai is celebrated in a poem by the late Lord Byron, called, "The Island, or Christian and his Companions," in which are recorded some affecting circumstances connected with the subsequent lives and ultimate apprehension of many of these unhappy men, and several facts relative to the Society and Friendly Islands.

Tubuai was also the first of the South Sea Islands that gladdened the sight of the Missionaries who sailed in the Duff. They saw the land on the morning of the 22d of February, 1797, near thirty miles distant; and as the wind was unfavourable, the darkness of night hid the island from their view before they were near enough distinctly to behold its scenery or inhabitants. I can enter

in some degree into their emotions on this unusually interesting day. All that hope had anticipated in its brightest moments, was no longer to be matter of uncertainty, but was to be realized or rejected. Such feelings I have experienced, and can readily believe theirs were of the same order as those of which I was conscious, when gazing on the first of the isles of the Pacific that we approached. Theirs were probably more intense than mine, as a degree of adventurous enterprise was then thrown around Missionary efforts, which has vanished with their novelty. Our information, also, is more circumstantial and explicit than theirs could possibly have been.

Tubuai is stated, in the Introduction to the Voyage of the Duff, to have been at that time but recently peopled by some natives of an island to the westward, probably Rimatara, who, when sailing to a spot they were accustomed to visit, were

driven by strong and unfavourable winds on Tubuai. A few years after this, a canoe sailing from Raiatea to Tahiti, conveying a chief who was ancestor to Idia, Pomare's mother, was also drifted upon this island, and the chief admitted to the supreme authority; a third canoe was afterwards wafted upon the shores of Tubuai, containing only a human skeleton, which a native of Tahiti, who accompanied the mutineers, supposed belonged to a man he had killed in a battle at sea. The scantiness of the population favoured the opinion that the present race had but recently become inhabitants of this abode; and the subsequent visits of Missionaries from Tahiti, with the residence of native teachers among the people, have furnished additional evidence that the present Tubuaian population is but of modern origin, compared with that inhabiting the island of Raivavai on the east, or Rurutu and Rimatara on the west.

In 1817, I touched at Tubuai. The island is compact, hilly, and verdant; many of the hills appeared brown and sunburnt, while others were partially wooded. At a distance it appears like two distinct islands, but on a nearer approach the high land is found to be united. It is less picturesque than Rapa, but is surrounded by a reef of coral, which protects the low-land from the violence of the sea. As we approached this natural safeguard to the level shore, which is perhaps more extensive than the level land in any other island of equal size, a number of natives came out to meet us. Their canoes, resembling those of Rapa, were generally sixteen or twenty feet long; the lower part being hollowed out of the trunk of a tree, and the sides, stem, and stern, formed by pieces of thin plank sewed together with cinet or