THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 303 
With such simple vessels as were used by these 
people, it is surprising that such accidents did not 
more frequently occur. When we consider that, 
before their intercourse with Europeans, they pos- 
sessed no metal tools, that their work was performed 
wholly by the eye, without line, rule, or square, 
and that the seams were closed merely by, as it 
were, tying the planks to each other with cinet, 
it does seem surprising that their canoes could even 
live in a sea. Yet they were strong and secure, 
and many of them remarkably dry and comfortable, 
leaking very little, for they were accustomed to 
insert between the seams the cocoa-nut husk, which 
always swells when wetted; and the expansion of 
this substance closed the crevices neatly. Their 
craft, though varying much in size and minor 
points, according to the purposes for which they 
were intended, were built nearly on the same model; 
the stem and stern generally being curved upwards, 
so as to project out of water. As they were much 
higher than wide, they needed some contrivance 
to obtain uprightness; and this they secured, either 
by lashing two together by cross-beams, making 
the double canoe just now alluded to, or by means 
of an outrigger, which is a stout plank or spar, 
parallel to the side of the canoe, and fixed at some 
distance from the larboard side, by two horizontal 
poles, which connect it with the vessel. The out- 
rigger floats on the water, and while it remains fast, 
there is no possibility of capsizing. They were 
furnished with masts, sails made of the leaves of 
the pandanus, woven into a sort of matting, and 
