324 POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
been kept, where human sacrifices were offered, 
where the inauguration of the last heathen king 
who reigned in Tahiti took place, and where every 
cruelty and every abomination connected with 
naganism had been practised for ages. After the 
subversion of idolatry, this marae was divested of 
its glory, stripped of all its idolatrous appendages, 
and robbed of its gods, while the houses they 
occupied were committed to the flames. Still the 
massy pile of solid stonework, constituting one 
end of the area which the marae included, 
remained in a state of partial dilapidation—an 
imposing monument of the hau riaria, reign of 
error, as they denominated idolatry. The natives 
were, however, determined to remove even this 
vestige of the system of which they so long had 
been the vassals, and therefore levelled, for this 
occasion, the extensive pile, and with the mate- 
rials formed a spacious solid piatform, measuring 
three feet high, one hundred and ninety-four 
feet long, and one hundred and fifty-seven feet 
wide; the whole surrounded with a stone wall 
cemented with lime. Here a festival was held on 
the llth of June, 1824. Upon this platform 
ninety tables were prepared, after the manner of 
preparation for a feast in England. Seats, 
usually native-made sofas or chairs, were arranged 
along the sides of the tables, and all the children 
in the school, about two hundred and forty, dined 
together. 
The Missionaries, and many of the parents of 
the children, were present—delighted to witness 
the cheerfulness of the boys and the girls, as they 
sat together, and unitedly partook of the bounties 
of Providence. Mr. Darling, the indefatigable 
Missionary of the station, remarks, ‘‘ This was on 
