But the most singular circumstance connected with this South Sea
cathedral remains to be related. As well for the beauty as the
advantages of such a site, the islanders love to dwell near the
mountain streams; and so, a considerable brook, after descending from
the hills and watering the valley, was bridged over in three places,
and swept clean through the chapel.

Flowing waters! what an accompaniment to the songs of the sanctuary;
mingling with them the praises and thanksgivings of the green
solitudes inland.

But the chapel of the Polynesian Solomon has long since been deserted.
Its thousand rafters of habiscus have decayed, and fallen to the
ground; and now, the stream murmurs over them in its bed.

The present metropolitan church of Tahiti is very unlike the one just
described. It is of moderate dimensions, boarded over, and painted
white. It is furnished also with blinds, but no sashes; indeed, were
it not for the rustic thatch, it would remind one of a plain chapel
at home.

The woodwork was all done by foreign carpenters, of whom there are
always several about Papeetee.

Within, its aspect is unique, and cannot fail to interest a stranger.
The rafters overhead are bound round with fine matting of variegated
dyes; and all along the ridge-pole these trappings hang pendent, in
alternate bunches of tassels and deep fringes of stained grass. The
floor is composed of rude planks. Regular aisles run between ranges