86 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
read, or if any of them attended the school, and 
the religious services on the Sabbath ? On their 
answering in the negative, I advised them not to 
neglect these advantages, assuring them that it 
was a good thing to be instructed, and to know 
the true God, and his Son Jesus Christ, the only 
Saviour. They said, “ Perhaps it is a good thing 
for some to attend to the palapala and the pule , 
(to reading and prayers,) but we are the king’s 
servants, and must attend to his concerns. If we 
(meaning all those that had the care of the king’s 
lands) were to spend our time at our books, 
there would be nobody to cultivate the ground, 
to provide food, or cut sandal-wood for the king.” 
I asked them what proportion of their time was 
taken up in attending to these things ? They 
said, they worked in the plantations three or four 
days in a week, sometimes from daylight till nine 
or ten o’clock in the forenoon; that preparing an 
oven of food took an hour; and that when they 
went for sandal-wood, which was not very often, 
they were gone three or four days, and sometimes 
as many weeks. They were the king’s servants, 
and generally work much less than the people 
who occupy or cultivate lands. I asked them 
what they did in the remaining part of those 
days in which they worked at their plantations 
in the morning, and also on those days when 
they did not work at all ? They said they ate 
poe, laid down to sleep, or kamailio no (just 
talked for amusement.) They were then asked, 
which they thought would be most advantageous 
to them—to spend that time in learning to read, 
and seeking the favour of Jehovah and Jesus 
Christ, that they might live for ever—or wasting 
it in eating, sleeping, or foolish talking, and re- 
