IRREGULARITY OF ROADS AND BUILDINGS. 355 
for bricks ; and the Missionaries formerly made one 
or two attempts to prepare them for ovens, &c. 
but did not succeed. Individuals professing to 
understand making bricks have once or twice 
offered to teach the natives ; but much as we have 
wished to possess permanent brick houses for 
ourselves, or to recommend the natives to prepare 
such, we are convinced that the labour would be 
too great, and the failures in burning them too 
frequent, to allow at present of their being made 
with advantage,—yet we hope they will follow the 
plastered cottage, just as that now occupies the 
place of the native hut. 
The timber principally employed in their build¬ 
ings, is the wood of the bread-fruit; and although 
they are careful of this valuable tree, it is neces¬ 
sary frequently to urge the duty of planting, in 
order to ensure a future supply not only of timber 
but of food, as the large trees are now com¬ 
paratively few, and the population is evidently in¬ 
creasing. 
In the commencement of a new settlement, or 
the establishment of a town, like that rising around 
us at the head of Fare harbour, we were desirous 
that it should assume something like a regular 
form, as it regarded the public buildings and habi¬ 
tations of the chiefs and people. We sometimes 
advised them to build their houses and form their 
public roads in straight lines, and to leave equal 
distances between the roads and the houses, 
and also between each dwelling. Our endea¬ 
vours, however, were unavailing. They could 
perceive nothing that was either desirable or ad¬ 
vantageous in a straight road, or regularity in the 
site, or uniformity in the size or shape, of their 
habitations. Every one, therefore, followed his own 
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