358 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
bably last ten or fifteen years. Many, however, 
from the rude and hurried manner in which they 
were built, became dilapidated in a much shorter 
period. 
While individuals and families were thus en¬ 
gaged in the erection of their domestic habitations, 
the people of the island were occupied in raising 
a spacious and substantial chapel. They com¬ 
menced it in the beginning of 1819, and completed 
it early in the following year. It was one hundred 
feet long, and sixty wide. The sides were four¬ 
teen or sixteen feet high, and the centre not less 
than thirty. The walls were plastered within and 
without. The roof was covered with pandanus 
leaves, the windows closed with sliding shutters, 
and the doors hung with iron hinges of native 
workmanship. Altogether, the building was finish¬ 
ed in a manner highly creditable to their public 
spirit, skill, and industry. All classes cheerfully 
united in the work, and the king of the island— 
assisted by his only son, a youth about seventeen 
years of age—might be seen every day directing 
and encouraging those employed in the different 
parts of the building, or working themselves with 
the plane or the chisel, in the midst of their chiefs 
and subjects. 
The interior of the roof was remarkable for the 
neatness of its appearance, and the ingenuity of its 
structure. The long rafters, formed with slender 
cocoa-nut, casuarina, or hibiscus trees, were per¬ 
fectly straight, and polished at the upper end. The 
lower extremities were ornamented with finely- 
woven variegated matting, or curiously braided 
cord, stained with brilliant red or black and yellow 
native colours, ingeniously wound round the 
polished wood, exhibiting a singularly neat and 
