270 OUR HERITAGE THE SEA 



totally different state of affairs prevailing. These 

 essentially maritime people constructed vessels of 

 most ingenious build and profuse ornamentation, with 

 the aid of the rudest tools and by dint of the most 

 strenuous toil, for the sole purpose of warfare. The 

 idea of commerce never so much as entered their 

 heads. Their homes furnished them in utmost abund- 

 ance with all that their simple needs cared for, as 

 far as food was concerned. What they craved for 

 was the stimulant of bloodshed, and, since to slay 

 one another was monotonous and, besides, pointed to- 

 wards extinction, which they naturally dreaded, they 

 looked longingly towards the islands near at hand 

 for the means of gratifying their desires. How long 

 it took them to develop their war-vessels from the 

 simple little tree-trunk, hollowed by fire and scraped 

 into shape by sharpened shells, we have no means of 

 knowing; but we do know that these naked savages, 

 ignorant of all arts and totally without maritime 

 models, did succeed in building huge war canoes 

 capable of carrying hundreds of warriors over many 

 miles of intervening sea. Their errand was solely 

 Avar. It has been assumed by some that they sought 

 food, being cannibals ; but this I doubt, feeling assured 

 from all the evidence obtainable that the eating of 

 captives was entirely in the nature of a religious rite. 

 No people could want food who were situated as these 

 were in the midst of seas teeming with fish, and on 

 islands whose fertile soil produced, without any tilling, 

 such enormous quantities of fruit. 



One curious fact may be here noticed, viz. that 

 while the art of ship-building reached to such a high 

 standard in some of these islands, in others quite near 



