378 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
sixty children. In the latter part of the same 
year, I visited Raivavai. The singular, broken, 
and romantic shape of the mountains, gave univer¬ 
sal interest to the scenery; the natives were nu¬ 
merous, and, though uncivilized, their behaviour 
was neither barbarous nor repulsive. They were 
anxious to entertain us with hospitality and kind¬ 
ness, and readily conducted me to whatever was 
interesting in the neighbourhood. Their idols 
were of stone, which appeared a kind of cellular 
lava, of a light ferruginous colour. They were 
generally rudely carved imitations of the human 
figure. The people appeared ingenious, patient, 
and industrious, and the carving of their pad¬ 
dles, bowls, and other domestic utensils, in the 
taste displayed in its devices, and the skill of its 
execution, surpassed any thing of the kind I have 
seen in the Pacific. 
The teachers, Horoinuu, Ahuriro, and Tohi, 
gave me a very favourable account of their atten¬ 
tion to instruction. In 1829, when they were last 
visited, it was found that a contagious epidemic, 
a kind of malignant fever, had destroyed a great 
portion of the inhabitants. This disease was ori¬ 
ginally brought from Tubuai, and, for a consi¬ 
derable time after it appeared, from ten to fifteen 
deaths occurred daily. If a healthy person came 
in contact with the body or clothes of one diseased, 
the malady was generally communicated. During 
the first stages of the progress of the disease, whole 
families, from attending the sick, were simulta¬ 
neously attacked with the dreadful complaint, and 
often buried in one common grave. The visitors 
observe, “ Never have we witnessed a more melan¬ 
choly spectacle; houses are left without inhabit- 
