
supported by columns of the cocoa-nut tree.
    Its facings are here and there daubed over with a tawdry blue; and in other
places (without the slightest regard to uniformity), patches of the same colour
may be seen. In their ardour to decorate the sanctuary, the converts must have
borrowed each a brush full of paint, and zealously daubed away at the first
surface that offered.
    As hinted, the general impression is extremely curious. Little light being
admitted, and everything being of a dark colour, there is an indefinable Indian
aspect of duskiness throughout. A strange, woody smell, also - more or less
pervading every considerable edifice in Polynesia - is at once perceptible. It
suggests the idea of worm-eaten idols packed away in some old lumber-room at
hand.
    For the most part, the congregation attending this church is composed of the
better and wealthier orders - the chiefs and their retainers; in short, the rank
and fashion of the island. This class is infinitely superior in personal beauty
and general healthfulness to the marenhoar, or common people; the latter having
been more exposed to the worst and most debasing evils of foreign intercourse.
On Sundays, the former are invariably arrayed in their finery; and thus appear
to the best advantage. Nor are they driven to the chapel, as some of their
inferiors are to other places of worship; on the contrary, capable of
maintaining a handsome exterior, and possessing greater intelligence, they go
voluntarily.
    In respect of the woodland colonnade supporting its galleries, I called this
chapel the Church of the Cocoa-nuts.
    It was the first place for Christian worship in Polynesia that I had seen;
and the impression upon entering during service was all the stronger.
Majestic-looking chiefs, whose fathers had hurled the battle-club, and old men
who had seen sacrifices smoking upon the altars of Oro, were there. And hark!
hanging from the bough of a bread-fruit tree without, a bell is being struck
with a bar of iron by a native lad. In the same spot, the blast of the war-conch
had often resounded. But to the proceedings within.
    The place is well filled. Everywhere meet the eye the gay calico draperies
worn on great occasions by the higher classes, and forming a strange contrast of
patterns and colours. In some instances, these are so fashioned as to resemble
as much as possible European garments. This is in excessively bad taste. Coats
and pantaloons, too, are here and there seen; but they look awkwardly enough,
and take away from the general effect.
