VISITS TO NATIVE CHRISTIANS. 209 
earnest manner in which the people listened to an 
animated discourse delivered by Mr. Nott. In the 
evening several of the Missionaries met for social 
worship, and with this sacred exercise we closed 
our first Sabbath in the Society Islands, under a 
deep impression of the advantages of Christianity, 
and the pleasing effects, which we had that day 
witnessed, of Divine influence over the hearts of 
the most profligate idolaters. 
In the afternoon of the succeeding Sabbaths, I 
visited a number of Christian chiefs at their own 
houses. We usually found them either reading 
together, conversing on the contents of their books, 
or some other religious subject. At Hitoti’s dwell¬ 
ing, which I visited on the second Sabbath after 
my arrival, the household were about to kneel 
down for prayer when we entered; we joined 
them, and several of the petitions which the chief 
offered up to God, appeared, when interpreted by 
my companion, remarkably appropriate and ex¬ 
pressive. 
In the course of my first week on shore, I made 
several excursions in different parts of the district. 
The soil, in all the level part of the valley, was a 
rich vegetable mould, with a small portion of 
alluvial, washed down from the surrounding hills, 
which are generally covered with a stiff kind of 
loam or brownish-red ochre. Several large plan¬ 
tations were well stocked with the different pro¬ 
ductions of the island; but a large portion of the 
valleys adjacent to the settlement, were unculti¬ 
vated, and covered with grass or brush-wood, grow¬ 
ing with all the rank luxuriance that a humid 
atmosphere, a tropical sun, and a fertile soil, would 
combine to produce. 
I also accompanied one of the Missionaries on a 
ii. p 
