POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
155 
The building, in which they were taught, stood near 
the sea-beach, under the shade of a clump of cocoa-nut 
trees. Though of no very durable kind, it appear¬ 
ed well adapted to the purpose to which it was 
appropriated. It was upwards of sixty feet long, and 
rather narrow. The thatch was composed of the leaves 
of the pandanus, neatly fastened on rafters of purau or 
hibiscus, and the walls, or sides and ends, were formed 
with straight branches resembling the rafters, and 
planted in the ground about two inches asunder. There 
was a door at each end; windows were altogether 
unnecessary in such a building, as the space between 
the poles, forming the outside, admitted light and air 
in abundance; and wind, with rain, sometimes in larger 
quantities than was quite agreeable. The floor, which 
was of sand, was covered with long dry grass. A rustic 
sort of table, or desk, between three and four feet 
high, stood on one side, equally distant from each end, 
and the whole of the building was filled with low 
forms, on which the natives were sitting; while, on 
one side I saw one or two forms longer and broader 
than the rest, with small ledges on the sides, filled 
with sand, for the purpose of teaching writing, after 
the manner of the national schools in England. A 
number of pillars in the centre supported the ridge 
pole, or rather the different ridge poles, which unitedly 
sustained the roof of the building. The different joints 
in these, and the narrow horizontal boards supporting 
the bottoms of the rafters, presented a kind of chrono¬ 
logical index to the history of the place. It was first 
erected by the liberality of a gentleman in London. He 
presented to Tapioi, the Marquesan youth who accom¬ 
panied Mr. Bicknell to England, the articles with which 
