POLYNRSIAN RESEARCHES. 
243 
alphabet, syllabic, and reading lessons of the spelling- 
book, and the Scripture extracts usually read in the 
school, have been neatly and correctly copied. Some¬ 
times the whole was accurately written on one broad 
sheet of paper—like native cloth, and, after the manner 
of the ancients, carefully rolled up, except when used. 
This was often the only kind of book that the natives in 
remote districts possessed; and many families have, with¬ 
out any other lessons, acquired a proficiency, that has 
enabled them to read at once a printed copy of the Scrip¬ 
tures. It has also gratified us, as indicative of the 
estimation in which the people held every portion of the 
word of God, and their desire to possess it, to behold 
them anxiously preserving even the smallest piece of 
paper, and writing on it texts of the Scripture which 
they had heard in the place of worship. 
These detached scraps of paper containing the sacred 
texts, were not, like the phylacteries of the Jews, bound 
on the forehead, or attached to the border of the garment, 
but carefully kept in a neat little basket. The possessor 
of such an envied treasure might often be seen sitting on 
the grass, with his little basket beside him, reading, to his 
companions around, these portions of the scripture. I 
have a number in the hand-writing of the natives, 
some of which they have brought, to have them more 
fully explained, or to inquire what connexion they bore 
to parts with which they might be better acquainted.— 
Their use was, however, superseded by the printing of 
the Gospel of St. Matthew, an edition of upwards of two 
thousand copies of which was finished in less than eigh¬ 
teen months after our arrival in Huahine. 
The people were anxious to receive them, and multi¬ 
tudes thronged the place where they were preparing, for 
