244 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
At Haumi, the adjoining district^ but few were pre¬ 
vailed upon to forsake paganism; but among them was 
an intelligent man, who was a priest. 
At Maatea, the district from which the king wrote, 
ninety-six renounced idolatry while he was there, in 
addition to others who had done so before. The change 
appeared to be general here. The chiefs, priests, and 
people publicly committed their idols to the flames, 
attended public worship, requested 'to have their names 
written down as desirous of becoming Christians, 
and importuned the king and his attendants to pro¬ 
tract their visit, that they might be more fully in¬ 
formed in all the matters connected with the profes¬ 
sion they had now made. 
The Bure Atua had hitherto escaped the ruin intended 
for them by their enemies; and, though these were 
masters of Tahiti, in Eimeo, and secretly in Tahiti, the 
number of those who had joined the Christians was 
greatly increased. This state of things could not long 
remain. The haughty and turbulent spirit of the victors 
was such as to prevent it: and in the event of their pro¬ 
ceeding to the object for which they had taken up 
arms, viz. the suppression of Christianity, it was by no 
means improbable that both the native Christians and 
their teachers, if they were not destroyed by their 
enemies, might be expelled from Tahiti and Eimeo. 
