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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
wood. The stairs, reading-desk, and communion table, 
were all of deep umber-coloured bread-fruit; and the 
whole, as a specimen of workmanship, was such as the 
native carpenters were not ashamed of. The floor was 
boarded with thick sawn planks, or split trees; and, 
although it exhibited great variety of timber and skill, 
was by no means contemptible. 
According to ancient usage in the erection of public 
buildings, the work had been divided among the different 
chiefs of the islands; these had apportioned their re¬ 
spective allotments among their peasantry or dependants, 
and thus each party had distinct portions of the wall, 
the roof, and the floor. The numbers employed rendered 
these allotments but small, seldom more than three or 
six feet in length, devolving on one or two families. This, 
when finished, they considered their own part of the 
chapel; and near the part of the wall they had built, and 
the side of the roof they had thatched, they usually fitted 
up their sittings. The principal chiefs, however, fixed 
their seats around the pulpit, that they might have every 
facility of hearing. 
Uniformity was as deficient in the sittings of the 
chapel, as in the houses of the town, each family fitting 
up their own according to their inclination or ability. 
For a considerable extent around the pulpit, the seats were 
in the form of low boarded pews neatly finished. Behind 
them appeared a kind of open, or trellis-work line of 
pews, which were followed by several rows of benches 
with backs; and, still more remote from the pulpit, what 
might be called free or unappropriated sittings, were 
solid benches or forms, without any support for the 
back or arms. 
The colour and the kind of wood, used in the interior, 
