1 841. J canoes. 413 



cocoa-nut, and when mixed with water forms the common 

 drink at their feasts, and is called karave. 



Since the natives have had intercourse with the whites, 

 they have become exceedingly fond of tobacco, which they 

 call tebake, and chew and swallow it as if it were really 

 delicious. 



The canoes belonging to these natives differ from those 

 seen in the neighboring groups, and are quite ingeniously 

 built. They have frames, about which strips of board, usu- 

 ally of cocoa-nut wood, are arranged in nearly the same 

 manner as the planking of large vessels. The boards are 

 sewed together with sennit, and have strips of pandanus 

 leaves inserted in the seams to prevent leakage. The canoes 

 are from twelve to fifteen feet long, two or three feet deep, 

 and from fifteen inches to two feet wide. They have small 

 outriggers and narrow platforms. The masts rake consider- 

 ably, and carry sails of moderate size and a triangular form. 

 The natives manage their craft with great dexterity when 

 under sail ; but their paddles are miserable things, consisting 

 merely of a piece of cocoa-nut board or tortoise shell, per- 

 haps six inches square, attached to a round stick, and they 

 are not over expert in the use of them. Near most of the 

 towns there are wharfs built of coral blocks, for the conve- 

 nience of landing from the canoes. 



Hatchets and adzes, roughly made of bone or stone, and 

 knives and saws of shark's teeth, are the principal tools of the 

 natives, but they are used with much skill and ingenuity, as 

 is evinced by the buildings, canoes, and other articles man- 

 ufactured with them. 



(6.) While lying off the town of Utiroa, on Drummond's 

 Island, a seaman belonging to one of the American vessels 

 was inveigled away by some means from the party with 

 whom he had landed, and was supposed to have been mur- 

 dered. Repeated demands for the restoration of the missing 

 man were made, but without success, — the natives assuming 

 a blustering appearance, and displaying themselves clad in 

 their armor and with their weapons. Captain Hudson there- 



