CAPTAIN GAMBIER’S TESTIMONY. 419 
fluency in the Otaheitan language. The church 
was well attended, though not so full as on 
Sundays, when it is crowded. Almost all the 
women, young and old, were habited in the 
European manner. The most perfect order 
reigned the whole time of the service. The 
devout attention these poor people paid to what 
was going forward, and the earnestness with which 
they listened to their teacher, would shame an 
English congregation. I declare, I never saw any 
thing to equal it! Objects of the ereatest curi- 
osity at all other times, they paid no sort of atten- 
tion to, during the solemnity of their worship. 
After it was over, crowds, as usual, gathered 
round, to look at our uniforms, to them so new 
and uncommon. I locked round very often 
during the sermon, and saw not one of the con- 
gregation flag in their attention to it. Every face 
was directed to the preacher, and each counte- 
nance strongly marked with sincerity and pleasure. 
I had heard of the success of the Missionaries 
before I came to Otaheite, and, after making great 
allowance for exaggeration in the accounts they 
had sent home, there remained sufficient to lead 
me to anticipate that they had done a great deal. 
But I now declare, their accounts were beyond 
measure modest, and, far from colouring their 
success, they had not described it equal to what I 
found it. It is impossible to describe the sen- 
sations experienced on seeing the poor natives of 
Otaheite walking to a Protestant church in the 
most orderly and decent manner, with their books 
in their hands, and most of them dressed in Euro- 
pean clothes. Having just quitted the Marquesas, 
where we saw the very state the Otaheitans were 
in at the time of their first visitors, we of course 
2£2 
