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CHAPTER XXIII. 



AT FUTUNA, RECRUITING. 



Sure enough, in accordance with our expectations, break 

 of day revealed the twin masses of Futuna ahead, some 

 ten or fifteen miles away. With the fine, steady breeze 

 blowing, by breakfast-time we were off the entrance to a 

 pretty bight, where sail was shortened and the ship hove- 

 to. Captain Count did not intend to anchor, for reasons 

 of his own, he being assured that there was no need 

 to do so. Nor was there. Although the distance from 

 the beach was considerable, we could see numbers of 

 canoes putting off, and soon they began to arrive. Now, 

 some of the South Sea Islands are famous for the 

 elegance and seaworthiness of their canoes ; nearly all of 

 them have a distinctly definite style of canoe-building; 

 but here at Futuna was a bewildering collection of almost 

 every type of canoe in the wide world. Dugouts, with 

 outriggers on one side, on both sides, with none at all ; 

 canoes built like boats, like prams, like irregular egg- 

 boxes, many looking like the first boyish attempt to 

 knock something together that would float ; and — not to 

 unduly prolong the list by attempted classification of 

 these unclassed craft — coracles. Yes; in that lonely 

 Pacific island, among that motley crowd of floating 

 nondescripts, were specimens of the ancient coracle of 

 our own islands, constructed in exactly the same way ; 



