406 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
any of the meetings for public instruction ; and 
we observed with satisfaction, their altered ap¬ 
pearance in all public assemblies, as indicating 
an improvement in civilization, and an increase of 
industry. 
Their regular and early attendance on the Sab¬ 
bath, ever has been, and still is, remarkably con¬ 
spicuous ; the day is to them a season of holy rest 
and devotional enjoyment. Excepting in Tahiti and 
Eimeo, there is now no island on which more than 
a single Missionary resides, and consequently 
public preaching only at the station which he 
occupies. The principal families in most of the 
islands have removed to the settlement, for 
the benefit of regular instruction. Others, how¬ 
ever, occupy lands which are at some distance; 
and even those who have erected their dwellings 
near the residence of their teacher, having plan¬ 
tations situated in a remote district, are often 
absent for several days together. Most of them, 
however, repair to the settlement for the Sabbath; 
and it is a spectacle that has often gladdened our 
hearts, when, on the Saturday afternoon, we have 
seen parties from every direction approaching, by 
land or by water, the bay, at the head of which 
our settlement was formed. 
In a walk through the village, on the afternoon 
of the day preceding the Sabbath, looking along 
the shore, we have often beheld the light canoe 
doubling a distant point of land, and, with its 
native cloth or matting sail, wafted towards the 
station. Others nearer the shore, with their sails 
lowered, have been rowed by the men ; while the 
women and children were sitting in the stern, 
screened from the sun by a temporary awning. 
