Aug.] 



WAR CANOES. 



423 



feet. The bamboos which unite them are placed about two feet apart, 

 and strongly secured to the gunnels by a lashing of their bark cord. 

 Small sticks of bamboo are then extended fore and aft, secured to the 

 cross pieces, thus forming a light platform, from twenty to twenty-five 

 feet in length, and eight or ten feet wide. They paddle on the two 

 outsides and insides of the canoes, propelling them forward with aston- 

 ishing speed, much swifter than our whale-boats with six oars, pulled 

 by our most vigorous tars. These are called their war canoes, and 

 many of them have very curiously carved heads and sterns, which rise 

 from one to three feet above the hull, not unlike the fashion of the 

 New-Zealanders. Their paddles are generally four feet in length, 

 with blades about six inches wide, the whole very neatly finished off 

 with carved work, admirably executed. 



Their sails for the single canoes are made like their own garments, 

 of a beautiful long grass, which they have the art of weaving into a 

 strong substantial cloth, suitable for all their ordinary purposes. These 

 sails are shaped like what is called a " shoulder-of-mutton sail," and 

 used in the following manner. The mast stands exactly perpendicu- 

 lar, in the centre of the canoe, being from twelve to eighteen feet in 

 height. At the head of this mast is hoisted a yard, proportioned to the 

 size of the canoe, from twenty-five to thirty-five feet in length. The 

 sail spreads this yard, and when hoisted at the mast-head, its foot 

 sweeps the gunnel of the canoe. These sails are cut in such a manner, 

 that the canoes never need go in stays when beating to windward, 

 being so constructed as to go either end foremost. When they wish 

 to go on the other tack, she suddenly falls off until the other end of the 

 boat becomes the head, and luffs up to the wind ; by which time the 

 men have raised the tack on the depressed end of the yard, and brought 

 its opposite extremity down to the other end of the boat. Thus she 

 hugs the wind on either side by turns, without ever looking directly in 

 its teeth. 



I have seen these boats going at the rate of eight miles an hour, 

 within four points of the wind. But let them run large, or before the 

 wind, with a strong breeze, and I have no doubt but they will go at the 

 rate of twelve or thirteen miles an hour, in smooth water. By only 

 shifting the sail, with a side wind, these canoes will pass, back and 

 forth, between two islands, each end alternately foremost, with great 

 rapidity, without the necessity of putting about. The sails, as I ob- 

 served, are made of the same kind of stuff as their wearing apparel ; 

 but it is made much stouter, and in small pieces of about three feet 

 square, sewed together. In cutting the sail to its proper shape, the 

 pieces which come off one side answer to go on the other ; this gives 

 it the proper form ; and causes the halliards to be bent on in the middle 

 of the yard. 



As these canoes are used principally in fishing, it will be proper, in 

 this place, to mention their implements and apparatus for that business. 

 Their nets and seines are made of twine, which they manufacture from 

 the bark of a tree. The meshes are about an inch square, and the 

 length of the seine from fifteen to twenty fathoms, with a depth of 

 fifteen to eighteen feet. Instead of cork floaters, they use small joints 



