POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
129 
weakened by the departure of Mr. Shelly, with his 
family. He relinquished Missionary pursuits, and sailed 
for Port Jackson on the ninth of March. 
In the month of July, following, the queen of Tahiti 
died, in the district of Pare, after an illness of nearly 
eight weeks. About the time her indisposition com¬ 
menced, she had become the mother of a still-born 
child; the sickness that followed, and the fatal termina¬ 
tion to which it led, were supposed to be the results of 
a cruel and unnatural practice, that cannot be described— 
a species of infanticide often resorted to by females of 
high rank in the island, although not unfrequently 
issuing, as was imagined on the present occasion, in the 
death of the perpetrator. Pomare had offered his prayers 
to the gods of his family, and many ceremonies had 
been performed, but to no purpose. The queen was in 
person about the middle stature; mild and affable in her 
behaviour; addicted to all the vices of her country; and 
was cut off in the prime of life, being about twenty-four 
years of age at the time of her death. The king and 
his mother appeared affected with their loss; and the 
grief of his relatives was severe, as the death of so many 
members of Pomare’s family threatened, at no very 
remote period, its total extinction. Pomare was left a 
widower and childless, all the children of the late queen 
having been destroyed. 
Although reports of war were heard during the year, 
there was no actual hostility; and, under discourage¬ 
ments every day increasing, the Missionaries were 
enabled to prosecute their labours. Having found it 
difficult to engage the attention of the children, while 
attempting to teach them in the presence of the adults, 
who ridiculed the idea of their learning letters, they 
s 
