88 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
the trees constituting which, they cut down in the forest— 
when skreened from the wind by that portion of the wall 
their own hands reared—and covered by that section of 
the roof which they had thatched. 
While the inhabitants of Huahine were thus laudably 
engaged in providing the means of increasing their do¬ 
mestic enjoyments, and accommodating the assemblies for 
public worship; their neighbours in the adjacent island 
of Raiatea were not behind them in the rapidity of their 
improvement. They had erected a number of dwelling- 
houses, and a building for divine service, larger than that 
at Huahine, but inferior in elevation and breadth; being 
forty-two feet wide, and at the sides about ten feet high. 
It was finished a week or two earlier than the chapel in 
Huahine, and was opened on the 11th of April in the 
same year; when upwards of 2400 inhabitants of that 
and the adjacent islands assembled within its walls. 
To the natives of Raiatea, this work of their own hands 
appeared a wonderful specimen of architecture; and the 
manner in which its interior was finished perfectly 
astonished them, and appeared no less surprising to the 
natives of the other islands. It was not only furnished 
with a pulpit, a desk, a boarded floor throughout, con¬ 
structed of the tough planks of the reva, or (galaxa 
sparta,) and filled with pews and seats, but, by the inven¬ 
tion and ingenuity of the Missionaries, it was subse¬ 
quently furnished with a rustic set of chandeliers. 
By this contrivance it could be lighted up for an even¬ 
ing congregation, while we were under the necessity of 
concluding all our public services before the sun de ¬ 
parted. These chandeliers, as they may perhaps with 
propriety be called, were not indeed of curious work ¬ 
manship or dazzling brilliancy, in polished metal or cut- 
