320 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
the remnant of the people, place them among the 
nations of the earth, and direct them to the en¬ 
joyment of civilized life, and the participation of 
immortality and happiness in another world, had 
sent them the word of God, and Missionaries to 
unfold to them, in their own language, its divine 
and invaluable truths. At the close of this in¬ 
terview, some again repeated, that it would be a 
good thing for Missionaries to come; others ex¬ 
pressed doubt and hesitation. 
Many of the people, during their intercourse 
with foreigners, have been made acquainted with 
the leading facts in the history of South America 
and the West Indies; and hence the natives of 
this place, in all probability, derived the ground 
of their objection. 
The inhabitants of Waiakea are peculiarly fa¬ 
voured, in having woods producing timber, such as 
they use for building, within three or four miles 
of their settlement, while the natives in most parts 
of the islands have to fetch it from a much greater 
distance. In neatness and elegance of appear¬ 
ance, their houses are not equal to those of the 
Society Islanders, even before they were instructed 
by Europeans, but in point of strength and dura¬ 
bility they sometimes exceed them. There is also 
less variety in the form of the Sandwich Island 
dwellings, which are chiefly of two kinds, viz. the 
hale noho , (dwelling house,) or halau, (a long 
building,) nearly open at one end, and, though 
thatched with different materials, they are all 
framed in nearly the same way. 
The size and quality of a dwelling varies ac¬ 
cording to the rank and means of its possessor, 
those of the poor people being mere huts, eight or 
ten feet square, others twenty feet long, and ten 
