352 canoes. [1840. 



single plank of pine timber, or bread-fruit, dovetailed to the 

 sides, which surround a frame-work of ribs lashed securely 

 together with sennit. The joints and chinks are closed with 

 the gum of the bread-fruit tree, with which also the sides are 

 varnished. In other respects they resemble those of the Ton- 

 gese, before described ;* indeed, that people have imitated the 

 Feejeeans, and frequently resort to this group to construct their 

 craft. The canoes are likewise managed in a similar manner 

 with those in the Tonga Islands. They are often fancifully 

 ornamented with the shells of the cyprcea ovula, and have 

 beautifully white, or party-colored sails of tap a cloth, decora- 

 ted with long pennants and streamers. When scudding be- 

 fore the wind, though trembling like an aspen leaf at every 

 plunge, they present a most magnificent appearance. 



Great ingenuity and skill are exhibited by the natives in 

 building their houses and canoes; and their mechanical ex- 

 pertness is far superior to that of most other Polynesians. 

 Prior to their intercourse with the whites, they had only a 

 few rude tools, among which were an adze, and a hatchet, made 

 of bone ; a knife of bamboo cut down to an edge when green, 

 and afterwards dried and charred ; gimlets of bones, and the 

 long spines of the echina ; and carving instruments of the 

 teeth of rats and mice set in pieces of iron- wood. They now 

 make their adzes of plane-irons lashed to crooked sticks with 

 sennit, and use hatchets of American or European manufact- 

 ure when they can be obtained. 



(9.) Tortoise shell, biche de liter, and the whales frequent- 

 ing the neighborhood of the Feejee Islands, are the only in- 

 ducements for vessels to make voyages thither, except it be 

 merely to obtain water and provisions. Tortoise shell sells 

 readily in Europe and the United States for seven or eight 

 dollars the pound, and a picult of biche de mer brings from 

 fifteen to twenty dollars in the Chinese market. Axes, 

 hatchets, plane-irons, gimlets, scissors, knives, beads, ver- 

 milion, muskets, powder, trunks and chests, looking-glasses, 



* Anle, pp. 321, 322. t The picul is about 133 J pounds avoirdupois. 



