TIJE FRIENDLY AND OTHER ISLANDS 491 



various colours. Bowls and plates of wood are also 

 manufactured, and cups and bottles of coco-nut shells, 

 beautifully carved and polished. The handles of their 

 implements, clubs, and paddles are carved with a mar- 

 vellous elaboration, and with great taste, their only tools 

 being formed of stone or shell. Their canoes, some- 

 times more than a hundred feet long, take many years 

 to build, and are marvels of ingenuity and constructive 

 skill, the planks accurately fitted and fastened together 

 by strong cords, so as to resist the strain of voyages of 

 many hundreds of miles in the open ocean. Their houses 

 are of an oval form, supported on two lofty central 

 pillars, and resting on a row of dwarf posts, the roof 

 strongly formed of rafters and thatch. Their weapons 

 are few and simple, and the art of making pottery is 

 unknown ; yet, as they are undoubtedly in a far higher 

 state of civilisation, and far superior in mental capacity 

 to many savage races who possess that art, it is a proof 

 that we cannot measure the status of human advance- 

 ment merely by proficiency in the mechanical arts. Hav- 

 ing no vessels to boil water, their cooking is entirely 

 performed by baking, generally in holes in the ground, a 

 method which, although rude in appearance, is really 

 so satisfactory that we cannot wonder at their not seeking 

 for any other. 



Their clothing is simple, consisting of the ordinary 

 T-bandage for the men, and for the women a neat girdle 

 or petticoat formed of dracsena leaves. Sometimes the 

 women use also a garment like the Peruvian poncho to 

 cover the upper part of their bodies, and on state occa- 

 sions the men drape themselves in voluminous folds of 

 the beautiful twpa cloth. The men are usually tattooed 

 in a variety of tasteful patterns from the navel to the 

 thigh, and often around the mouth and eyes also, so that 



