204 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
the names of the chiefs who had sent us the food ; 
and, pointing to the heaps of fruit and the pigs, 
said one was for me, and another for Mrs. Ellis, 
and the third for our infant daughter. He then 
directed the native servants of the house to take 
care of it, and departed. 
Soon after my arrival, I visited the school, and 
was greatly delighted to behold numbers of adults, 
as well as children, under the direction of 
Messrs. Davies and Tessier, learning their alphabet 
and their spelling, or reading with distinctness 
their lessons, which were principally extracts from 
Scripture. 
The building, in which they were taught, stood 
near the sea-beach, under the shade of a clump of 
cocoa-nut trees. Though of no very durable kind, 
it appeared well adapted for the purpose to which 
it was appropriated. It was upwards of sixty feet 
long, but rather narrow. The thatch was com¬ 
posed of the leaves of the pandanus, neatly fast¬ 
ened on rafters of purau or hibiscus, and the walls, 
or sides and ends, were formed with straight 
branches resembling the rafters, and planted in 
the ground about two inches asunder. There was 
a door at each end; windows were altogether 
unnecessary in such a building, as the space be¬ 
tween the poles, forming the outside, admitted 
light and air in abundance ; and wind, with rain, 
sometimes in larger quantities than was quite 
agreeable. The floor, which was of sand, was 
covered with long dry grass. A rustic sort of 
table, or desk, between three and four feet high, 
stood on one side, equally distant from each end, 
and the whole of the building was filled with low 
forms, on which the natives were sitting; while, 
on one side I saw one or two forms longer and 
