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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
wearing also deep European mourning. Mrs. Barff and 
Mrs. Ellis^ with our children, walked after these; the 
tenantry of his own district, and servants of his house¬ 
hold, came next; and after them the greater part of the 
population of the island. 
When we reached the place of sepulture, I turned and 
looked towards the valley, and beheld, I think, a scene 
of the most solemn interest that ever I witnessed. Be¬ 
fore us stood the bier, on which was laid the corpse of 
the individual of highest hopes among all I beheld, des¬ 
tined for the highest distinction the nation knew, whose 
tall, and, for his years, gigantic form, open and manly 
brow, had promised fair for many years of most com¬ 
manding influence, an influence which we once had 
hoped would have advanced his country’s welfare. Be¬ 
side that bier stood his youthful widow, weeping, we 
have reason to believe, tears of imfeigned sorrow; and 
who, in addition to the loss she had sustained, was on 
the eve of becoming a mother. Near her stood his 
venerable sire, gray with age, and bending with infir¬ 
mities, taking a last sad look of aU that now remained 
of what had once been the stay of his declining years, 
his hope and joy; towards whom, in all his wayward 
courses, he had exercised the affection of a father. 
Around them stood the friends, and, along the margin 
of the placid ocean, and emerging from the shadowy 
paths that wound along the distant valley, the mourning 
tribes, the father, and the mother, with their children, 
were seen advancing slowly to the spot. Each individual 
in the whole procession, which, as they walked only two 
abreast, extended from the sepulchre to the valley, wore 
some badge of mourning; frequently it was a white tiputa 
or mantle, with a wide black fringe. 
