THEIR CANOES. 283 



made of bone, a rasp of coral, and the skin of a sting ray as a 

 file and polisher, were the only tools which they possessed. 

 With these rude implements they generally took up several 

 days in felling a tree, which was then split into planks. The 

 boards, having been very dexterously smoothed, were afterwards 

 fitted to the boat with the same exactness that might be 

 expected from an expert joiner. 



To fasten them together, holes were bored with a piece of 

 bone fixed into a stick for that purpose, and through these 

 holes a kind of plaited cordage was passed, so as to hold the 

 planks strongly together. The seams were caulked with dry 

 rushes, and the whole outside of the vessel was painted over 

 with a kind of gummy juice which supplied the place of pitch. 

 Considering the inferiority of their tools, the building of one of 

 their large war canoes, which sometimes had the enormous 

 length of 108 feet and could hold forty men, was undoubtedly 

 a piece of workmanship not inferior to the huge vessels 

 constructed in Europe with the assistance of iron. Grenerally 

 two of these war canoes were lashed together, with two masts 

 set *up between them, and a high platform raised above, on 

 which the warriors, armed with spears and slings, were 

 stationed ; the rowers sat below, ready to receive the wounded 

 from above and to send reinforcements to take their place. 

 Single boats had an outrigger on one side, and only one mast 

 in the middle ; and in these frail constructions, they did not 

 hesitate to sail far beyond the sight of land, shaping their 

 course in the daytime by the sun, at night by the stars, to 

 which they gave their particular names. 



A fleet of war canoes with its curved figures, its waving 

 pennants, and its men gracefully clothed in flowing garments, 

 afforded a highly picturesque spectacle, which might give 

 some idea of the vessels in which the Argonauts sailed to 

 Colchis, or the Homeric heroes embarked for the destruction 

 of Troy. 



Accustomed to bathe from infancy, the half-amphibious 

 South Sea Islanders are admirable swimmers. Captain Cook 

 was amazed at the natatorial expertness of the Tahitians in a 

 tremendously high surf, in which the best European swimmer 

 would have been drowned, as the shore was covered with 

 pebbles and large stones. Whenever a huge wave broke near 



