Weapons and Canoes. 145 
in these comparisons. The reason is simply this, that here 
it is the men—not the women—who give themselves up 
especially to personal adornment and savage foppery. 
From their ornaments let us turn to their weapons. On some 
of the islands their native weapons have been laid aside for 
arms of a superior kind, just as we have laid aside the smooth- 
bore musket. They have learnt that our fire-arms are far more 
deadly than even their poisoned spears and arrows; and as 
they are not conservative in any matter in which they think any 
alteration will give them an advantage over their fellow-savages, 
they have eagerly grasped at the gun and the ammunition 
offered to them by the traders. On most of the islands, how- 
ever, the native weapons are still in use. They are—spears, 
bows and poisoned arrows, clubs, slings, kawas (a long heavy 
stone, which is thrown by the natives with much precision) and 
hatchets. 
Their canoes are, as I think was remarked before, of the 
rudest description. Recipe for construction :—Cut down a, tree 
having a trunk sufficiently large, say two feet or more in diameter; 
cut off a log the required length ; hollow it out; fix to one 
side an outrigger, extended by poles six feet or so from the 
canoe ; shape out some paddles five feet long, and make a 
_wooden baler, the shape of a grocer’s scoop ; and the canoe is 
ready for use. When a tree cannot be obtained of sufficient 
diameter to make a large canoe, the natives add a plank on 
each side, fastening it by cords. The largest canoe I have seen 
in the New Hebrides was thirty feet long ; but there are few of 
that size, the commonest length being from fifteen to twenty 
feet, which are capable of carrying three or four people. In 
these crafts the natives used to pass from one island to another, 
sometimes a distance of forty miles; but these voyages 
were always attended with great danger, and nowadays, 
when they wish to visit another island, they generally wait 
