344 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
European manner, it might be furnished with great 
facility, and the fact of their being able to prepare 
with little trouble, lime from the coral rock, would 
encourage them in building comfortable houses* 
Our friends in Raiatea were perhaps more urgent 
than ourselves, in their recommendation of im¬ 
proved dwellings. On our first visit to Raiatea, 
in January 1819, the servants of Tamatoa, the 
king of that island, were plastering a house for his 
residence : it was nearly finished ; the outside was 
completed, and they were at work within. A day 
or two after our return to Huahine, we were de¬ 
lighted to see one in the district of Fare actually 
finished. It was smaller than Tamatoa’s, and 
differently shaped, his being oval, and this being 
nearly square,- with high gable-ends. It belonged 
to an ingenious and industrious young man, whose 
name was Navenavehia, and who, although an in¬ 
ferior chief in Huahine, had accompanied Mahine 
to Eimeo, where he had resided in the family of 
Mr. George Bicknell, by whom he had been taught 
the use of tools, and the art of burning lime. It 
is not easy, nor is it material, to determine which 
of these two houses was finished first. They were 
certainly both in hand at the same time, and the 
periods of their completion were probably not very 
remote from each other. A new order of archi¬ 
tecture was thus introduced to the nation, and the 
names of Tamatoa, king of Raiatea, and of Nave¬ 
navehia, the more humble chief in Huahine, ought 
not to be forgotten, in connexion with the introduc¬ 
tion of a style of building which has since prevailed 
extensively among the people, augmenting their 
social and domestic comforts, changing the ap¬ 
pearance of their villages, and improving the beau¬ 
tiful scenery of their islands. 
