92 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
sionaries^ who had beheld with regret the baneful in¬ 
fluence of unprincipled seamen, on the minds and habits 
of the people. 
From one of these ships, Oripaia, a chief of Papara, and 
rival of Pomare, had received a large quantity of gun¬ 
powder as a present. The powder being coarser in the 
grain than what the natives had been accustomed to 
receive, they imagined either that it was not powder, or 
that it was a very inferior kind. In order to satisfy 
themselves, Oripaia proposed to one of his attendants to 
try it. A pistol was loaded, and fired over the whole 
heap of powder they had received, and around which the 
chief and his attendants were sitting. A spark fell from 
the pistol, and the whole of the powder instantly ex¬ 
ploded. As soon as the natives had recovered from the 
shock, perceiving the powder adhering to their limbs, 
they attempted to rub it off, but found the skin peel off 
with it; they then plunged into an adjacent river. Six 
of the natives were severely injured, and Oripaia with 
one of his attendants died. As soon as Pomare was 
acquainted with the accident, he begged Mr. Broomhall 
to visit the house in which the accident had occurred, 
and endeavour to relieve the sufferers. The chief appeared 
in a most affecting state, dreadfully scorched with the 
powder; Mr. Broomhall employed such applications 
as he supposed likely to alleviate his sufferings; 
these, however, increased, and both the chief and his 
wife attributed his pains, not to the effects of the explo¬ 
sion, but to the remedies applied, or rather to the poison 
imagined to be infused into the application by the god 
of the foreigners. This not only aroused the jealousy of 
the chief, and the rage of Otu, but had nearly cost Mr. 
Broomhall and his companions their lives, and made 
