a comparatively civilized, humane, industrious, and Christian people. They also comprise a record of the measures pursued by the native governments, in changing the social economy of the people, and regulating their commercial in tercourse with foreigners, in the promulgation of a new civil code, (a translation of which is given,) the establishment of courts of justice, and the introduction of trial by jury.

"Besides information on these points, the present work furnishes an account of the intellectual culture, Christian experience, and general conduct, of the converts; the proceedings of the missionaries in the several departments of their duty; the administration of the ordinances of Christianity; the establishment of the first churches, with their order and discipline; the advancement of education; the introduction of arts; the improvement in morals; and the progress of civilization.

"During an absence of ten years from England, the author made copious notes of much that came under his notice, and, while residing in the South Seas, kept a daily journal. From these papers, from the printed and manuscript documents in the possession of the London Missionary Society, (to which the most ready access has been afforded,) from the very ample communications by the missionaries in the islands, especially his respected colleagues Messrs. Barff and Williams, and from iuformation derived by daily intercourse for several years with many of the natives, who have been identified with the most important events of the last thirty years in Tahiti, the present volumes have been written. He has studiously and constantly endeavoured to render the accounts accurate, and trusts they will prove not only interesting, but useful.

"For the defects that may appear in the execution of the work, he feels it necessary to apologize. It has been prepared amidst incessant public engagements, and some parts have passed through the press during his absence on a distant journey in behalf of the Missionary Society." Vol. i. pp. viii. – x.

Having discharged this grave duty, we shall employ ourselves in decking our pages with some of the native beauties of a tropical clime. Our missionary has the eye of a poet and the band of an artist; yet we venture to predict, that the specimens we shall now produce will not be thought to exceed the truth of nature.

N. S. NO. 6L.

"The first Sabbath I spent in the islands, was a day of deep and delightful interest. The missionaries were accustomed to meet for prayer at sun-rise, on the morning of the Sabbath. This service I attended, and was also gratified to find, that not fewer than four or five hundred of the natives, imitating their teachers in this respect, met for the purpose of praise and supplication to the true God, during the interval of public worship, which was held early in the morning, and four in the afternoon.

"About a quarter before nine in the morning, I accompanied Mr. Crook to the public worship of the natives, held in the same house in which I had visited the school a day or two before It was, indeed, a rude and perishable building, totally destitute of every thing imposing in effect, or exquisite in workmanship; yet I beheld it with emotions of pleasure, as the first roof under which the natives of Tahiti had assembled, in any number, to receive the elements of useful knowledge, to listen with sincerity and satisfaction to the word of God, and to render publicly unto him the homage of their grateful praise; for,

6

Though gilded domes, and splendid fanes,

And costly robes, and choral strains,
And altars richly dress'd;
And sculptur'd saints, and sparkling
gems,

And mitred priests, and diadems,
Inspire with awe the breast:

'Tis not the pageantry of show That can impart devotion's glow,

Nor sanctify a prayer.
The soul enlarged, devout, sincere,
With equal piety draws near

The holy house of God,
That rudely rears its rustic head,
Scarce higher than the Indians' shed;
By Indians only trod.'

"The place was thronged with people, and numbers were standing or sitting round the doors and the outside of the building. When we arrived, they readily made way for us to enter; when a scene, destitute indeed of magnificence and splendour as to the structure itself, or the richness in personal adornment of its inmates, but certainly the most delightful and affecting I had ever beheld, appeared before me. Between five and six hundred native Christians were there assemTheir

bled, to worship the true God. persons were cleanly, their apparel neat, their countenances either thoughtful, or beaming with serenity and gladness. The heads of the men were uncovered, their hair cut and combed, and their beards

F

shaven. Their dress was generally a pareu round the waist; and a native tiputa, over their shoulders, which covered the upper part of the body, excepting the arms. The appearance of the females was equally interesting; the greater part of them wore a neat and tasteful bonnet, made with the rich yellow-tinted cocoa-nut leaf. Their countenances were open and lively; many of them had inserted a small bunch of the fragrant and delicately white gardinia, or Cape jessamine flowers, in their hair; in addition to which, several of their chief women wore two or three fine native pearls fastened together with finely braided human hair, and hanging pendent from one of their ears, while the other was adorned with a native flower. Their dress was remarkably modest and becoming, being generally what they term ahu bu, which consists of large quantities of beautifully white native cloth, wound round the body, then passed under one arm, and fastened on the other shoulder, leaving uncovered only the neck and face, and part of one arm.

"The assembly maintained the most perfect silence, until Mr. Davies, who othciated on the occasion, and was seated behind the table, which answered the double purpose of a desk for the schoolmaster, and a pulpit for the minister, rose up, and gave out a hymn in the native language. The whole congregation now rose, and many of them joined in the singing, A prayer was then offered, during which the congregation remained standing; another hymn was sung; the people then sat down, and listened attentively to a discourse, delivered by the missionary standing on the ground behind the desk. When this was ended, a short prayer was offered, the benediction pronounced, and the service closed. The assembly dispersed with the utmost propriety and order; many of them, as they passed by, cordially shook me by the hand, and expressed their joy at seeing me among them. My joy, and excitement of feeling, was not less than theirs. There was something so pleasing and novel in their appearance, so peculiar in their voices when singing, and in their native language, both during the prayers and sermon, and something so solemn and earnest in their attention, with such an air of sincerity in devotion during the whole service, that it deeply affected my heart. I was desirous of speaking to them in return, and expressing the grateful satisfaction with which I had beheld their worship; but the scene before me had taken such a powerful hold of my feelings, that I returned home in silence, filled with astonishment at the change that had

taken place, and deeply impressed with the evidence it afforded of the efficacy of the gospel, and the power of the Almighty. At eleven o'clock I attended public worship in the English language.

"At four in the afternoon the natives again assembled, and I attended at their worship. Though I could not understand their language, I was pleased with the large attendance, and the serious and earnest manner in which the people listened to an animated discourse delivered by Mr. Nott. In the evening several of the missionaries met for social worship, and with this sacred exercise we closed our first Sabbath in the Society Islands, under a deep impression of the advantages of Christianity, and the pleasing effects which we had that day witnessed, of Divine influence over the hearts of the most profligate idolaters.

"In the afternoon of the succeeding Sabbaths I visited a number of Christian chiefs at their own houses. We usually found them either reading together, conversing on the contents of their books, or some other religious subject. At Hitoti's dwelling, which I visited on the second Sabbath after my arrival, the household were about to kneel down for prayer when we entered; we joined them, and several of the petitions which the chief offered up to God, appeared, when interpreted by my companion, remarkably appropriate and expressive.

"In the course of my first week on shore, I made several excursions in different parts of the district. The soil, in all the level part of the valley, was a rich vegetable mould, with a small portion of alluvial, washed down from the surrounding hills, which are generally covered with a stiff kind of loam or brownish-red ochre. Several large plantations were well stocked with the different productions of the island; but a large portion of the valleys adjacent to the settlement, were altogether uncultivated, and covered with grass or brush-wood, growing with all the rank luxuriance that a humid atmosphere, a tropical sun, and a fertile soil, would combine to produce.

"I also accompanied one of the missionaries on a voyage to the opposite side of the island, about twenty miles distant from the settlement at l'apetoai. Two natives paddled our light single canoe along the smooth water within the reefs till we reached Moru, where we landed, to take some refreshment at the house of a friendly chief. This was the first native meal I had sat down to, and it was served up in true Tahitian style. When the food was ready, we were requested to seat ourselves on the dry grass that co

vered the floor of the house. A number of the broad leaves of the purau, hibiscus tile-aceus, having the stalks plucked off close to the leaf, were then spread on the ground, in two or three successive layers, with the downy or underside upwards, and two or three were handed by a servant to each individual, instead of a plate. By the side of these vegetable plates, a small cocoa-nut shell of salt water was

placed for each person. Quantities of fine large bread-fruit, roasted on hot stones, were now peeled and brought in, and a number of fish that had been wrapped in plantain leaves, and broiled on the embers, were placed beside them. A bread-fruit and a fish was handed to each individual, and, having implored a blessing, we began to eat, dipping every mouthful of bread-fruit or fish into the small vessel of salt water, without which, to the natives, it would have been unsa voury and tasteless. I opened the leaves, and found the fish nicely broiled; and, imitating the practice of those around me, dipped several of the first pieces I took into the dish placed by my side: but there was a bitterness in the sea water which rendered it rather unpalatable: I therefore dispensed with the further use of it, and finished my meal with the bread-fruit and fish.

"About two o'clock in the afternoon, we resumed our journey; travelling sometimes along the sea-beach, and at other times availing ourselves of the canoe until near sunset, when we reached Afareaitu-and created by our arrival no small stir among the people.

"The next morning we examined the district, and were delighted with its fertility, extent, and resources. Afareaitu is on the eastern side of Eimeo, opposite the district of Atehuru in Tahiti, and is certainly one of the finest districts in the island. It comprises two valleys, or rather one large valley partially divided by a narrow hilly ridge extending from the mountains in the interior, towards the shore. The soil of the bottom of the valley is rich and fertile, well stocked with Cocoa-nuts and bread-fruit trees. The surrounding hills are clothed with shrubs or grass, and the lofty and romantic mountains forming the central boundary,

are adorned with trees or bushes even to their summits. Several broad cascades

flowed in silvery streams down the sides of the mountain, and broken occasionally by a jutting rock, presented their sparkling waters in beautiful contrast with the rich and dark foliage of the stately trees, and the flowering shrubs that bor

dered their course. A number of streams originating in those waterfalls pursued their course through the valley, and one,

receiving in its way the tributary waters of a number of sequestered streamlets, swelled at times into what in these islands might be called a river, and flowed along the most fertile portions of the district into the sea.

"A small bay was formed by an elliptical indentation of the coast, an opening in the reef opposite the bay admitted small vessels to enter, and a picturesque little coral island, adorned with two of three clumps of hibiscus and cocoa-nut trees, added greatly to the beauty of its appearance. There was no swamp or marshy land between the shore and the mountains; the ground was high, and the whole district not only remarkably beautiful, but apparently dry and healthy. The abundance of natural productions, the apparent salubrity of the air, the conveni ence of the stream of water, the facility of the harbour, combined to recommend it as an eligible spot for at least thé temporary residence of a part of the missionaries. We therefore waited on the principal chiefs, one of whom had accompanied us from Papetoai, and inquired if it would be agreeable to them for us to come and reside there. They expressed themselves pleased with the prospect of such an event, and promised every assistance in the erection of our houses, &c. Having accomplished the object of our visit, we left Afareaitu, and returned to Papetoai the same evening.”—Vol. i, pp. 156-163.

It is a remarkable fact, that Pomare the king of Tahiti, was the first convert to the Christian faith in the islands; that he,

and

priests, were resolved to establish their religion by force of arms. The king acted only on the defensive. Victory soon crowned his righteous cause with the laurels of a merciful conqueror. The whole narrative should be extracted; but we must refer our readers to the work itself for an

account of that interesting transaction, which terminated in the destruction of Oro, the national idol, and with that log of wood, the downfal of one of the most bloody and impure superstitions which ever enslaved the mind of man.

With one or two specimens of nature in this fairy-land, we must close our extracts; and we would do it just as those itinerant exhibitors of foreign rarities sometimes do, to whet the curiosity of the crowd, and to convert the balancing of the mind, between the means and the inclination, into an irresistible impulse of desire, by flinging back, for a moment, the intervening curtain, and permitting a hasty glance of the show.

The following description of the cocoa-nut tree is from the hand of a son of Linnæus.

"The fruits of the islands are not so numerous as in some continental countries of similar temperature, but they are valuable; and, next to the breadfruit, the haari, or cocoa-nut, coccos nucifera, is the most serviceable. The tree on which it grows is also one of the most useful and ornamental in the islands, imparting to the landscape, in which it fails not to form a conspicuous object, all the richness and elegance of intertropical verdure.

"The stem is perfectly cylindrical, three or four feet in diameter at the root, very gradually tapering to the top, where it is probably not more than eighteen inches round. It is one single stem from the root to the crown, composed apparently of a vast number of small hollow reeds, united by a kind of resinous pith, and enclosed in a rough, brittle, and exceedingly hard kind of bark. The stem is without branch or leaf, excepting at the top, where a beautiful crown or tuft of Tong green leaves appears like a grace

ful plume waving in the fitful breeze, or nodding over the spreading wood, or the humble shrubbery. The nut begins to grow in a few months after it is planted; in about five or six years, the stem is seven or eight feet high, and the tree begins to bear. It continues to grow and bear fifty or sixty years, or perhaps longer, as there are many groves of trees apparently in their highest perfection, which were planted by Pomare nearly forty years ago. While the plants are yonng, they require fencing, in order to protect them

from the pigs; but after the crown has reached a few feet above the ground, the plants require no further care.

"The bread-fruit, the plantain, and almost every other tree furnishing any valuable fruit, arrives at perfection only in the most fertile soil; but the cocoanut, although it will grow in rich bottoms of the valleys, and by the side of the streams that flow through them, yet flourishes equally on the barren seabeach, amid fragments of coral and are washed by sand, where its roots every rising tide; and on the sunburnt sides of the mountains, where the soil is shallow, and remote from the streams so favourable to vegetation. The trunk of the tree is used for a variety of purposes: their best spears were made with cocoa-nut wood; wall plates, rafters, and pillars for their larger houses, were often of the same material; their instrument for splitting bread-fruit, their rollers for their canoes, and also their most durable fences, were made with its trunk It is also a valuable kind of fuel, and makes excellent charcoal.

"The timber is not the only valuable article the cocoa nut tree furnishes. The leaves, called niau, are composed of strong stalks twelve or fifteen feet long. A number of long narrow pointed leaflets are ranged alternately on opposite sides.

The leaflets are often plaited, when the whole leaf is called paua, and forms an excellent skreen for the sides of their houses, or covering for their floors. Several kinds of baskets are also made with the leaves, one of which, called arairi, is neat, convenient, and durable. They were also plaited for bonnets or shades for the forehead and eyes, and were worn by both sexes. In many of their religious ceremonies they were used, and the niau, or leaf, was also an emblem of authority, aud was sent by the chief to his dependents, when any requisition was made: bunches or strings of the leaflets were also suspended in the temple on certain occasions, and answered the same purpose

as beads in Roman Catholic worship, reminding the priest or the worshipper of the order of his prayers. On the tough and stiff stalks of the leaflets, the candle nuts, employed for lighting their houses, were strung when used. "Round that part of the stem of the leaf which is attached to the trunk of the tree, there is a singular provision of nature, for the security of the long leaves against the violence of the winds. A remarkably fine, strong, fibrous matting, attached to the bark under the bottom of the stalk, extending half way round the trunk, and reaching perhaps two or three feet up the leaf, acting like a bracing of net work to each side of the stalk, keeps it steadily fixed to the trunk. While the leaves are young, this substance is remarkably white, transparent, and as fine in texture as silver paper. In this state it is occasionally cut into long narrow slips, tied up in bunches, and used by the natives to ornament their hair. Its remarkable flexibility, beautiful whiteness, and glossy surface, render it a singularly novel, light, and elegant plume; the effect of which is heightened by its contrast with the black and shining ringlets of the native hair it surmounts. As the leaf increases in size, aud the matting is exposed to the air, it becomes coarser and stronger, assuming a yellowish colour, and is called Aa.

“There is a kind of seam along the centre, exactly under the stem of the leaf, from both sides of which long and tough fibres, about the size of a bristle, regularly diverge in an oblique direction. Sometimes there appear to be two layers of fibres, which cross each other, and the whole is cemented with a still finer, fibrous, and adhesive substance. The length and evenness of the threads or fibres, the regular manner in which they cross each other at oblique angles; the extent of surface, and the thickness of the piece, corresponding with that of coarse cotton cloth; the singular manner in which the fibres are attached to each other-canse this curious substance, woven in the loom of nature, to present to the eye a remarkable resemblance to cloth spun and woven by human ingenuity.

"This singular fibrous matting is sometimes taken off by the natives in pieces two or three feet wide, and used as wrapping for their arrow-root, or made up into bags. It is also occasionally employed in preparing articles of clothing. Jackets, coats, and even shirts, are made with the aa, though the coarsest linen cloth would be much more soft and flexi

ble. To these shirts the natives generally fix a cotton collar and wristbands, and seem susceptible of but little irritation from its wiry texture and surface. It is a favourite dress with the fishermen, and others occupied on the sea.

"The fruit, however, is the most valuable part of this serviceable, hardy, and beautiful plant. The flowers are small and white, insignificant when compared with the size of the tree or the fruit. They are ranged along the sides of a tough, succulent, branching stalk, surrounded by a sheath, which the natives call aroe, and are fixed to the trunk of the tree, immediately above the bottom of the leaf. Fruit in every stage, from the first formation after the falling of the blossom, to the hard, dry, ripe, and full grown nut, that has almost begun to germinate, may be seen at one time on the same tree, and frequently fruit in several distinct stages on the same bunch, attached to the trunk of the same stalk.

"The tree is slow in growth, and the fruit does not, probably, come to perfection in much less than twelve months after the blossoms have fallen. A bunch will sometimes contain twenty or thirty nuts, and there are, perhaps, six or seven bunches on the tree at a time. Each nut is surrounded by a tough fibrous husk, in some parts two inches thick; and when it has reached its full size, it contains, enclosed in a soft white shell, a pint or a pint and a half of the juice usually called cocoanut milk.

"There is at this time no pulp whatever in the inside. In this stage of its growth the nut is called oua, and the liquid is preferred to that found in the nut in any other state. It is perfectly clear, and in taste combines a degree of acidity and sweetness, which renders it equal to the best lemonade. No accurate idea of the consistency and taste of the juice of the cocoa nut can be formed from that found in the nuts brought to England. These are old and dry, and the fluid comparatively rancid; in this state they are never used by the natives, except for the purpose of planting or extracting oil. The shell of the oua, or young cocoa-nut, is often used medicinally.

"In a few weeks after the nut has reached its full size, a soft white pulp, remarkably delicate and sweet, resembling, in consistency and appearance, the white of a slightly boiled egg, is formed around the inside of the shell. In this state it is called niua, and is eaten by the chiefs as an article of luxury, and used in preparing many of what may be