17B POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
rent effect on us. The sound of the cloth-beating 
mallet is not disagreeable^ where heard at a distance, in 
some of the retired valleys, indicating the abode of in¬ 
dustry and peace; but in the cloth-houses it is hardly 
possible to endure it. 
As the wives or daughters of the chiefs take a pride in 
manufacturing superior cloth, the queen would often 
have felt it derogatory to her rank, if any other females 
in the island could have finished a piece of cloth better 
than herself. I remember in the island of Huahine, 
when a native once passed by, wearing a beautiful ahu- 
fara, hearing one native woman remark to another— 
What a finely printed shawl that is ! The figures on 
it are like the work, or the marking, of the queen ! 
Tliis desire, among persons in high stations, to excel 
in departments of labour, is what we have always 
admired. This feeling probably led Pomare to bestow 
so much attention on his hand-writing, and induced the 
king of the Sandwich Islands to request that we would 
not teach any of the people till we had fully instructed 
him in reading and writing. 
The ahu, or cloth made with the bark of a tree, 
although exceedingly perishable when compared with 
European woven cloth, yet furnished, while it lasted, a 
light and loose dress, adapted to the climate, and the 
habits of the people. The duration of a Tahitian dress 
depended upon the materials with which it was made, the 
aoa being considered the strongest. Only the highly 
varnished kinds were proof against wet. The beauty 
of the various kinds of painted cloth was soon marred, 
and the texture destroyed, by the rain, as they were 
kept together simply by the adhesion of the inter¬ 
woven fibres of the bark. Notwithstanding this, a 
