POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
85 
The sides were fourteen or sixteen feet high, and the 
centre not less than thirty. The walls were plastered 
within and without. The roof was covered with pan- 
danus leaves, the windows closed with sliding shutters, 
and the doors hung with iron hinges of native work¬ 
manship. Altogether, the building was finished in a 
manner highly creditable to their public spirit, skill, 
and persevering industry. All classes cheerfully united 
in the work, and the king of the island—> assisted 
by his only son, a youth about seventeen years of age— 
might be seen every day directing and encouraging 
those employed in the different parts of the building, 
or working themselves with the plane or the chisel, in 
the midst of their chiefs and subjects. 
The interior of the roof was remarkable for the 
neatness of its appearance, and the ingenuity of its 
structure. The long rafters, formed with slender cocoa- 
nut, casuarina, or hibiscus trees, were perfectly 
straight, and polished at the upper end. The lower 
extremities were ornamented with finely-woven varie¬ 
gated matting, or curiously braided cord, stained with 
brilliant red or black and yellow native colours, inge¬ 
niously wound round the polished wood, exhibiting a 
singularly neat and chequered appearance. The orna¬ 
ment on the rafter terminated in a graceful fringe or 
bunch of tassels. 
The pulpit, situated at a short distance from the 
northern end, was hexagonal, and supported by six 
pillars of the beautiful wood of the pua, beslaria lauri- 
folia of Parkinson, which resembles, in its grain and 
colour, the finest satin-wood. The pannels were of rich 
yellow bread-fruit, and the frame of mero, thespesia 
populnea^ a beautiful fine-grained, dark, chestnut-coloured 
