52 



ELLICE'S AND KINGS MILL GROUP. 



are from two to three feet deep, and vary from fifteen inches to two 

 feet in width. Each canoe has six or eight timbers in its construc- 

 tion ; they are well modelled, built in frames, and have much sheer. 

 The boards are cut from the cocoa-nut tree, from a few inches to 

 six or eight feet long, and vary from five to seven inches in width. 

 These are arranged as the planking of a vessel, and very neatly put 

 together, being sewed with sennit ; for the purpose of making them 

 water-tight, they use a slip of the pandanus-leaf, inserted as our 

 coopers do in flagging a cask. They have evinced much ingenuity 

 in attaching the upright to the flat timbers, which are so secured as to 

 have all the motion of a double joint, which gives them ease and com- 

 parative security in a sea-way, and thus renders them capable of with- 

 standing the waves. They use an out-rigger, much smaller than 

 those of other islands, and the staging or platform covers less space. 

 One of the sides is nearly flat, in which respect they resemble the 

 proa of the Ladrones, as figured in Anson's Voyages. 



KINOSMILL CANUE. 



They are expert at managing their canoes, and seldom use their 

 paddles, which are miserably made, of a piece of cocoa-nut board 

 or tortoise-shell, about six inches square, attached to a round stick ; 

 on this account they prefer using their sails. These are triangular, 

 with an inclined or raking mast ; they are worked in sailing precisely 

 as those described in the Feejee Islands, keeping the out-rigger always 

 to windward, and tacking in the same way. Their masts are in two 

 or three pieces, as well as the yards, and the whole construction shows 

 that wood is exceedingly scarce, and that it is very difficult to procure 

 enough of it ; as a cocoa-nut tree, of which they are made, will yield 

 only two planks, in the mode in which they saw them out. One of 

 the canoes, from the town of Utiroa, which came alongside the first 

 day, was seen to be in part constructed from the bulwarks of a mer- 

 chant vessel, which had some time before been wrecked ; probably of 

 an English ship, as a wreck was reported to have been seen lying on 

 the reef in the beginning of March, 1839. 



On the night of the 4th, they were set strongly by the current 



