1839.] VESSELS AND CANOES. 187 



Double canoes are the only large vessels belonging to the 

 natives. Recently, small schooners of one hundred tons bur- 

 den have been built at Tahiti, under the superintendence of 

 Americans, which are employed in the trade to New South 

 Wales. The large timbers of the schooners are made of 

 mape, and the smaller ones of hibiscus. The native canoes 

 are of various sizes and shapes, either double or single, and 

 are decidedly superior to those found elsewhere in the Pacific. 

 Some of them are seventy feet long and but two feet wide, 

 with high stems and sterns, ornamented with grotesque 

 carved work. The war canoes are from forty to sixty feet 

 long, well-modelled and firmly built, and fancifully ornamented 

 with carving, and decorated with gay flags and streamers. 

 The canoes built for trading with vessels anchored in the 

 harbors, or for fishing on the reefs, are always single, and 

 rarely hold more than two persons. Mape and hibiscus fur- 

 nish the principal materials used in the construction of canoes. 

 The cordage is made of grape-vines, or the fibres of the bread- 

 fruit. The sails, usually of a half oval shape, are made of 

 matting of pandanus leaves ; they are very large, and one 

 would suppose that the canoes might be easily upset in a 

 squall, but the native sailors are expert and skilful, and, at 

 such times, they get far out on the outriggers, and thus keep 

 their frail barks in an upright position, while they dash for- 

 ward with the utmost velocity. 



There is little or no internal traffic. Almost every one 

 raises what food he needs for himself and family, and the 

 poorer class of natives manufacture their own clothing, from 

 that never-failing source of supply, the bread-fruit tree. Ve- 

 hicles for carrying burdens are not much used, although there 

 is a fine road, called the Broom Road, extending completely 

 around Tahiti near the beach, and finely arched with trees, 

 among them many cocoas, termed the queen's, the fruit of 

 which is free to strangers and travellers. The mode of car- 

 rying articles, in general use, is the same with that observed 

 in the East Indies, and throughout the islands of the Pacific : 

 — a stout stick, from four to five feet long, is extended hori- 



