422 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
Tamae; and although, whenever we took this route, 
we had to walk three-quarters of a mile along the 
margin of the lake, up to our knees in water, yet we 
have always been amply repaid, by beholding the 
neatness of the gardens, and the sequestered peace of 
the village, by experiencing the generous hospitality, and 
receiving unequivocal proofs of the simple piety of its 
inhabitants. Once or twice, when approaching Tamae 
about sunrise, we have met the natives returning from 
the bushes, whither, by the break of day, they had 
retired for meditation and secret prayer. Their counte¬ 
nance beamed with peace and delight; and, la ora oe ia 
lesu, la ora oe i te Atua —Peace to you from Jesus, 
Blessing on you from God—was the general strain of 
their salutation. 
More than once we had to take our little boy, even 
before he was three months old, from Afareaitu, where 
he was born, to Papetoai, for medical advice. 
These journeys were exceedingly wearisome: return¬ 
ing from one of them, night overtook us many miles 
before we reached our home; we travelled part of 
the way in a single canoe, but for several miles, where 
there was no passage between the reef and the shore, 
and the fragile bark was exposed without shelter to the 
long heavy billows of the Pacific, we proceeded along 
the beach, while the natives rowed the canoe upon the 
open sea. Two native female attendants alternately 
carried the child, while Mrs. Ellis and I walked on 
the shore, occasionally climbing over the rocks, or sink¬ 
ing up to our ankles in fragments of coral and sand. 
Wearied with our walk, we were obliged to rest before 
we reached the place where we expected to embark again. 
Mrs. Ellis, unable to walk any further, sat down upon a 
