NATIVE CHANDELIERS. 361 
Individuals in England, who have materially 
contributed by personal exertions or pecuniary aid 
to the erection or enlargement of a church or 
chapel, have, when the object of their solicitude 
and their toil has been accomplished, experienced 
emotions of satisfaction during the subsequent 
opportunities they have had of rendering divine 
homage there ; but the satisfaction of the Tahi¬ 
tians, though the same in kind, I am disposed to 
believe, is stronger in degree, when standing on 
the floor, the trees constituting which, they cut 
down in the forest—when skreened from the wind 
by that portion of the wall their own hands reared, 
and covered by that section of the roof which they 
had thatched. 
While the inhabitants of Huahine were thus laud¬ 
ably engaged in providing the means of increasing 
their domestic enjoyments, and accommodating the 
assemblies for public worship, their neighbours in 
the adjacent island of Raiatea were not behind 
them in the rapidity of their improvement. They 
had erected a number of dwelling-houses, and a 
building for divine service, larger than that at 
Huahine, but inferior in elevation and breadth; 
being forty-two feet wide, and at the sides about 
ten feet high. It was finished a week or two 
earlier than the chapel in Huahine, and was 
opened on the 11th of April in the same year; 
when upwards of 2,400 inhabitants of that and the 
adjacent islands assembled within its walls. 
To the natives of Raiatea, this work of their own 
hands appeared a wonderful specimen of archi¬ 
tecture ; the manner in which its interior was 
finished perfectly astonished them, and appeared 
no less surprising to the natives of the other 
islands. It was not only furnished with a pulpit, 
