MICRONESIA. 85 



The canoes sailing always with the outrigger to windward, var- 

 nished on the outside and whitewashed within ; the weapons armed 

 with sharks' teeth, the strings of circular beads, and the sashes 

 woven in a simple loom, which have been elsewhere mentioned as 

 characteristic of the Micronesian race, are all found here. So also is 

 the conical hat, made of cocoa-nut leaves, which is common to most 

 of the islands. The natives have a variety of the dog, the flesh of 

 which is considered a delicacy. The principal vegetable produc- 

 tions of the island are the bread-fruit, cocoa-nut, banana, sugar-cane, 

 and yam. 



Two other customs, which we learn from O'Connell, deserve to be 

 mentioned here. The first is that of sending messages by means of 

 leaves of a particular tree, the points of which are folded inwards in 

 different modes to express different meanings. " Inclosed in a plan- 

 tain-leaf, and secured by twine, one of these primitive letters accom- 

 panies donations of presents, and demands for them, declarations of 

 war and promises of submission, in short, all the state despatches." 

 The other is that of voluntary emigration, which, he says, " is resorted 

 to when the population becomes too dense for comfortable subsistence. 

 When it becomes certain that such a step is necessary, a number of 

 the natives, with their wives and children, take to their canoes, 

 victualled as liberally as the boats will bear, and trust to chance for a 

 harbour or a landing." He adds that the emigrants are, as may be 

 supposed, principally of the lower orders. 



Another fact connected with this island has excited much attention 

 and curiosity. It is the existence of extensive ruins upon a low flat 

 islet, on the south side of Banabe, near the harbour of Matalalin. 

 They are mostly in the form of enclosures, of various extent, some of 

 them covering more than a hundred square yards. The walls are 

 not less than thirty feet in height, and nearly as many in thickness. 

 They are built of enormous blocks of stone, which seem, from the 

 description, to be polygonal prisms of basalt. Some of them are 

 twenty-five feet long and nearly two feet in diameter, and must 

 weigh several tons. Between the enclosures are passages which 

 seem once to have been streets or foot-ways, but which are now filled 

 with water, so as to admit canoes. The whole island is overflowed 

 at high tide, except the parts enclosed by these walls, which keep the 

 earth from being washed away. But in some places the walls them- 

 selves have been undermined by the sea, and fallen. 



The natives can give no account of the origin of these structures, 



22 



