104 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
of quickest growth ; it soon over-runs uncultivated 
lands ; while the branching coral,/arero, is perhaps 
more rapid in its formation than any of the coral- 
lines that close up the openings in the reefs, and, 
wherever it is shallow, rises to the water’s surface, 
so as to prevent the passage of the canoe, and 
destroy the resort of the fish. This was denounced 
as the punishment that would follow disobedience 
to the injunctions or requisitions of the priest, de¬ 
livered in the name, and under the authority, of 
the gods. Tati, however, remarked to Mr. Davies, 
that it was the observing, not the neglecting of the 
directions of the priest, that had nearly produced 
its actual accomplishment. 
At the time when the nation renounced idolatry, 
the population was so much reduced, that many of 
the more observant natives thought the denuncia¬ 
tion of the prophet was about to be literally ful¬ 
filled. Tati, the chief of Papara, talking with Mr. 
Davies on this subject, in 1815, said, with great 
emphasis, that “ if God had not sent his word at 
the time he did, wars, infant-murder, human sacri¬ 
fices, &c. would have made an end of the small 
remnant of the nation.” A similar declaration was 
pathetically made by Pomare soon after, when some 
visitors from England, I think the Deputation from 
the Missionary Society, waited upon him at his resi¬ 
dence. He addressed them to the following effect: 
“ You have come to see us under circumstances 
very different from those under which your country¬ 
men formerly visited our ancestors. They came in 
the sera of men, when the islands were inhabited, 
but you are come to behold just the remnant of the 
people.” I have often heard the chiefs speak of 
themselves and of the natives as only a small toea , 
remainder, left after the extermination of Satani, or 
