1839.] tapa. 189 



state, they become interlaced with each other, and assume 

 the appearance of woven cloth. Bales of it are sometimes 

 made, two hundred yards long, and four yards in width. Its 

 color, in an unbleached state, is a darkish brown ; and it is 

 customary either to bleach it, or to color it with vegetable 

 dyes. Since the introduction of European cloth, there has 

 been a great deal less made, especially on Tahiti and Eimeo, 

 and it is now chiefly worn by females, children, and the 

 poorer classes 



(11.) There is some contrariety of opinion in regard to the 

 general influence exerted by the missionaries in the Society 

 Islands. No doubt, the condition of the inhabitants is very 

 different from what it would naturally have been, had they 

 remained enveloped in the mists and darkness of heathenish 

 superstition. — but might it not have been still better ? The 

 missionaries were unquestionably right in theory, yet they 

 lacked practical tact. They discouraged the fondness for 

 flowers which characterized the natives, because it was con- 

 nected with ancient customs and a dark and cruel faith, in- 

 stead of teaching the poor benighted pagan to love them bet- 

 ter, from a higher and nobler impulse — from adoration for 

 their Creator, whose matchless handiwork is nowhere more 

 strikingly or beautifully exhibited, than upon the islands of 

 the Pacific. They endeavored to check, or prohibit altogether, 

 some of their favorite amusements — among others, those of 

 singing and dancing — forgetting, meanwhile, that amuse- 

 ments are far more necessary to an excitable people, though 

 they may be indolent by nature, than to those who are cold 

 and phlegmatic in disposition. Though he failed to profit 

 by it in the end, Louis Philippe understood better the char- 

 acter of his subjects — of course more refined and enlightened 

 than the Society Islanders, but, like them, volatile, gay- 

 hearted, and mercurial in temperament — when he enriched 

 the collections, and added new beauties, to the noble Jardin 

 des Plantes, and filled the lofty halls and corridors, the 

 vaulted chambers and saloons, of Versailles, with all the 



