POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
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retired to the bushes near their lodgings, for medi¬ 
tation and secret prayer. The houses of the natives, 
however large they might be, never contained more than 
one room; and were generally so crowded with people, 
that retirement was altogether unattainable. While 
seeking this, about the dawn of the day, on the morn¬ 
ing after their arrival, Mr. Scott heard a voice at no 
great distance from his retreat. It was not a few de¬ 
tached sentences that were spoken, but a. continued 
address ; not in the lively tone of conversation, but 
solemn, as devotion; or pathetic, as the voice of lamen¬ 
tation and supplication. 
A variety of feelings led him to approach the spot whence 
these sounds proceeded, in order to hear more distinctly. 
O, what hallowed music must have broke upon his 
listening ear, and what rapture must have thrilled his 
soul, when he distinctly recognized the voice of prayer, 
and heard a native, in the accents of his mother-tongue, 
with an ardour that proved his sincerity, addressing 
petitions and thanksgivings to the throne of mercy. 
It was the first time he knew that a native on Tahiti’s 
shores had prayed to any but his idols; it was the first 
native voice in praise and prayer, that he had ever heard, 
and he listened almost entranced with the propriety and 
glowing language of devotion, then employed, until 
his feelings could be restrained no longer. Tears of 
joy started from his gladdened eye, and rolled in swift 
succession down his cheeks, while he could hardly 
forbear rushing to the spot, and clasping in his arms 
the unconscious author of his ecstacy. He stood trans¬ 
fixed as it were to the spot, till the native retired ^ when 
he bowed his knees, and, screened from human obser¬ 
vation by the verdant shrubs, offered up, under the 
