1811.] KINGSMILL GROUP. 401 



arras and lesjs of the women are similarly embellished. 

 Both sexes wear the maro, which is made of the finest pan- 

 danus leaves, and prettily fringed; also a girdle, called takai, 

 with a heavy fringe, two feet broad for the women, and from 

 eight inches to a foot for the men ; and some have mats as 

 wrappers about their bodies. The women, too, often wear 

 soft mats over their bosoms, and the men have similar arti- 

 cles sometimes thrown over their shoulders. The fringe of 

 the maro and the °irdle are usually dved red, or some other 

 bright color ; and the fringes of the mats are tinged of 

 various colors, in large squares or diamonds. A band of 

 pandanns leaves is frequently tied about the head or waist, 

 with the strips sticking out horizontally in every direction 

 like so many horns or points. 



Their canoes are rudely made. They are dug out of a 

 single log, usually about twenty feet long, and have strips 

 lashed on at the sides to raise them higher. Their sails aro 

 of a triangular shape, and their outriggers and paddles resem- 

 ble those seen in other Polynesian groups. Their fish-hooks 

 are carved out of wood or of shark's teeth. They have roughly 

 hewn war-clubs and spears, consisting merely of poles of 

 cocoa-nut wood sharpened at the point. Swords and knives 

 are made of shark's teeth fitted into a stick, and fastened 

 with gum and sennit. 



(5.) Holding on his course to the north-west, Captain 

 Hudson fell in with Taputeouea, or Drummond's Island, on 

 the 3d day of April. This island, and fourteen or fifteen 

 others, constitute the Tarawan or Kingsmill Group,* lying 

 just west, of the 175th meridian, east latitude, and stretch- 

 ing across the equator, from latitude 1° 20' S. to about 4° N. 

 They are of all sizes, — Drummond's Island, which is the 

 largest and southernmost of the group, being thirty miles in 

 length, and from a half to three quarters of a mile in width, 

 and the smaller ones, or the atolls, having a diameter of from 

 two to five miles. They are of coral formation, and none 



• This group is also known ^s the Gilbert Islands. 



