POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
73 
Activity was now the order of the day. Frames of 
buildings were seen rising with astonishing rapidity, 
in every part of the district | and houses of every size, 
from the lowly snug little cottage with a single door 
and window in front, to the large two-storied dwell¬ 
ing of the king or the chief. Buildings, in every stage 
of their progress, might be seen in a walk through the 
settlement i sometimes only a heap of spars and timber 
lay on the spot where the house was to be raised, but 
at other places the principal posts of the house were 
erected, others were thatched, and some partially or 
entirely enclosed with the beautiful white coral-lime 
plaster. Axes, hatchets, planes, chisels, gimlets, and 
saws, were, next to their books, the articles in greatest 
demand and highest esteem. 
No small portion of our time was occupied in direct¬ 
ing and encouraging them in their labours. We had, 
however, occasion to regret, that we were sometimes at 
as great a loss as the people themselves. They usually 
formed the walls of their dwellings, either by mortis¬ 
ing upright posts into large trees laid on the earth, 
or planting the posts in the ground about three feet 
apart. The spaces between the posts, excepting those 
for doors or windows, were filled with a kind of hur¬ 
dle-work, or wattling of small rods or sticks, of the 
tough casuarina. This they plastered with the mortar 
composed of coral-lime and sand, forming a plain sur¬ 
face, and covering also the posts on the outside, but 
leaving them projecting within. 
The next object was to make the doors and window- 
shutters ; thus far they had been able to proceed in 
the erection of their dwellings without nails; but to 
make doors and shutters without these, brought them 
II. L 
