Jack in the Atolls. 
75 
At the first break of dawn the men, naked 
save for a girdle of grass around their loins, 
sally out from their grey-roofed houses of 
thatch, and launch their canoes for the day’s 
work. Wonderful canoes these are, too—mere 
shells composed of small strips of wood sewn 
together with coconut cinnet. In no one of 
them will you see a plank more than two feet 
in length and six inches in width ; many are 
constructed of such small pieces of wood so 
deftly fitted and sewn together that one wonders 
how the builders ever had the patience to com¬ 
plete the craft. But wood is scarce on Ocean 
Island; and whenever—as sometimes happens 
—a canoe is smashed by the struggles of a 
more than usually powerful shark, the tiny 
timbers are carefully picked up by other canoes 
and restored to the owners, who fit them 
together by degrees until a new hull is pieced 
together. 
Perhaps twenty or more canoes go out toge¬ 
ther. No need to go far. Just outside the 
ledge of the reef is enough, for there Jack is 
waiting, accompanied by all-sized relatives, male 
and female. Lying upon the little grating of 
crossed sticks that reaches from the outrigger to 
