CHARACTER OF POMARE. 67 
Oro was by them supposed to be the direct cause 
of Pomare’s death. 
In person, Pomare, like most of the chiefs of 
the South Sea Islands, was tall and stout; in 
stature he was six feet four inches high, his limbs 
active and well-proportioned, his whole form and 
gait imposing. He was often seen at Matavai, 
walking with firm steady step, and using with 
ease as a walking-stick a club of polished iron- 
wood, that would have been almost sufficient for 
an ordinary native to have carried. His coun¬ 
tenance was open and prepossessing, his conversa¬ 
tion affable, though his manner was grave and 
dignified. He was originally only a chief of the 
district of Pare, but his natural enterprise and 
ambition, together with the attention shewn him 
by the commanders of British vessels, their pre¬ 
sents of fire-arms and ammunition, and the aid of 
European seamen, especially the mutineers of the 
Bounty, had enabled him to assume and maintain 
the supreme authority in Tahiti. Though not pos¬ 
sessed of the greatest personal courage, he was a 
good politician, and a man of unusual activity and 
perseverance. He laboured diligently to multiply 
the resources of the island, and improve the con¬ 
dition of the people, and his adherents were always 
well furnished with all that the island afforded. 
The uncultivated sides of the mountains, and the 
low flat sandy parts of the shore, seldom tilled by 
the natives, were reclaimed by his industry; and 
many extensive groves of cocoa-nut trees in Tahiti 
and Eimeo, which the inhabitants say were planted 
by Pomare, remain as monuments of his patriotism, 
and yield no small emolument to their . present 
proprietors. In all these labours he endeavoured 
to infuse his own spirit into the bosom of his fol- 
e 2 
