porter's journal. 



with locks of human hair intermixed with bunches of gray 

 beard, strung from the stem projection to the place raised 

 for the steersman. These ornaments are in the greatest 

 estimation among them, and a bunch of gray beard is in 

 their view what the feathers of the ostrich, or heron, or the 

 richest plumage would be in ours. The seat of the cox- 

 swain is highly ornamented with palm leaves and white 

 cloth; he is gayly dressed and richly ornamented with 

 plumes. The chief is seated on an elevation in the middle 

 of the canoe, and a person fancifully dressed in the bow, 

 which has the additional ornaments of pearl-shells strung 

 on cocoa-nut branches raised in the forepart of the canoe. 

 She is worked altogether by paddles, and those who use 

 them are placed, two on a seat, and give their strokes with 

 great regularity, shouting occasionally to regulate the time* 

 and encourage one another. These vessels, when col- 

 lected in a fleet and in motion, with all their rowers exert- 

 ing themselves, have a splendid and warlike appearance. 

 They were paraded repeatedly for my inspection, and in 

 all the reviews they appeared greatly to pride themselves 

 on the beauty and splendour of their men of war. They 

 are not however so fleet as might be expected, as our 

 whale boats could beat them with great ease. 



Their fishing canoes are vessels of a larger and fuller 

 construction, many of them being six feet in width, and of 

 an equal depth. They are managed with paddles more 

 resembling an oar, and are, in some measure, used as such, 

 but in a perpendicular position, the fulcrum resting on the 

 outriggers projecting from each side. With those they 

 proceed to the small bays on the coast, where they fish 

 with the scoop net, and with the hook and line. They 

 have also smaller canoes, which are commonly nothing 

 more than the hollow keels of the large ones, after the 

 upper works are taken off ; these are furnished with out- 

 riggers, and are used for fishing about the harbour. The 

 canoes used for the purpose of navigating from one island 

 to another, a navigation very common, are similar in their 

 construction to the larger kind of fishing canoes, and are 

 secured two together by beams lashed across. These are 

 called double canoes, and are furnished with a triangular 

 sail made of a mat, similar to that generally called a shoul- 

 der-of-mutton sail, but placed in an inverted position, the 



VOL. II. 10 



