58 SINGLE AND DOUBLE CANOES. 



contracted in the middle ; it is made of wood, 

 three-fourths of an inch thick, neatly covered with 

 fine cane matting-, fitting* very tig-htly. 



The canoes seen here are either sing-le or double, 

 in the latter case consisting" merely of two lashed 

 tog-ether, usually without an outrig-g-er. The single 

 canoes vary in leng"th from 20 to 30 feet, and carry 

 from five to a dozen people. Each end tapers to a 

 sharp projecting- point long-er at the bow. The 

 outrig-g-er fi-ame consists of five poles laid across the 

 g-unwale in g-rooves, and the float, which is rather 

 less than half the leng-th of the body of the canoe, 

 is secured to the ends of each by three peg's, a foot 

 in leng-th. The opposite ends of the outrig-g-er poles 

 project be3'ond the side only a few inches, and are 

 secured by lashing- of cane to a piece crossing- them; 

 the g-unwale is further streng-thened by slender poles 

 running' along- it from end to end. A small portion 

 only of the outrig-g-er frame is converted into a 

 platform by a few loose poles or a plank or two : 

 some of the latter were as much as two feet in 

 width, and only an inch in thickness, and must 

 have been cut with stone axes out of a log- of wood. 

 The larg-est canoe seen was judg-ed to be thirty-five 

 feet in leng-th, with a width at the bow of four and 

 a half feet, but this far exceeded in bulk any of the 

 other sing'le ones. Like the rest it essentially 

 consisted of the hollowed out trunk of a tree. All 

 the heavy canoes are pulled with oars, working in 

 cane g-romets, the others are propelled with paddles. 



