12 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
the place was actually thronged until the copies were 
expended. In their application at our own houses, _ 
we found it impossible to restrain the people; they 
filled our yards and gardens, and thronged every 
window, sometimes to such a degree, that one of 
the Missionaries, Mr. Bicknell, found it necessary 
to fasten the lower doors and windows of his house, 
and retire to the chamber. The natives then pro- 
cured long bamboo-canes, and, fastening their 
measure of oil, the price of the book, to one end, 
lifted it up to the window. Mr. Bicknell was so 
influenced by the ingenuity and determination of 
the contrivance, that he distributed a number of 
copies, by fixing them in a slit or notch in the end 
of the cane presented at his window. 
When the edition issued from the press in 
Huahine, the proportion for Raiatea, Tahaa, and 
Borabora, was sent to the Missionaries residing 
in these places; but the supply was too small, 
and numbers of the disappointed individuals, sup- 
posing they should find a greater abundance at 
Huahine, came, when the wind was fair, twenty or 
thirty miles in their canoes, several of which were 
such small and fragile barks as quite astonished 
us. I was really surprised at the temerity of the 
individuals who had committed themselves to the 
mercy of the waves of the largest ocean in the 
world, in the hollowed trunk of a tree, twelve or 
twenty feet long; the sides of which, when the 
men were in it, were not more than four or five 
inches above the surface of the water. 
It would be too much to suppose that they were 
all influenced by the highest motives, in the desire 
they thus manifested for the sacred volume; but 
while some probably sought it only as an article of 
property in high and general esteem, others were 
