448 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
ings of the chiefs and foreigners, but we attached it to our 
house, that Mrs. Ellis might avoid exposure to the sun, 
and the heat of the middle of the day, whenever it might 
be necessary to instruct the servant, or superintend the 
dressing of our food. The partitions separating the dif¬ 
ferent apartments were framed, wattled with thin sticks, 
and plastered; and although we found the labour of 
building oppressive, we were amply compensated by the 
comfort we subsequently enjoyed. The house was 
finished early in 181*9, became our residence shortly 
afterwards, and continued so until we embarked for the 
Sandwich Islands. 
Building houses, and avocations of a similar kind, 
were regarded as secondary objects; our main efforts 
were directed to the acquisition of the language. What¬ 
ever besides we had been able to do, we consi¬ 
dered ourselves wholly inefficient, until we were capa¬ 
ble of delivering our message to the inhabitants in 
their own tongue. We had many difficulties to en¬ 
counter, and were obliged to pick up the greater part 
of the language from the natives, who, unacquainted 
with our speech, could only explain to us the meaning 
ot words and phrases by their own : thus their explana¬ 
tions often increased our perplexity. My intimate 
acquaintance with all that had been printed, afforded 
me great facility in prosecuting the study of Tahitian. 
In less than a year, I w^as able to converse with the people 
on common topics, and preached my first sermon in 
Tahitian in the month of November, 1818. 
I was much affected on giving up myself to Mission¬ 
ary pursuits, on leaving England, and on reaching the 
islands, but I had never so deeply felt the responsibility 
of my situation, and my insufficiency for the work. 
