THE FRIENDLY AND OTHER ISLANDS 
491 
various colours. Bowls and plates of wood are also 
manufactured, and cups and bottles of coco-nut shells, 
beautifully carved and polished. The handles of their 
implements, clubs, and paddles are carved with a mar¬ 
vellous elaboration, and with great taste, their only tools 
being formed of stone or shell. Their canoes, some¬ 
times more than a hundred feet long, take many years 
to build, and are marvels of ingenuity and constructive 
skill, the planks accurately fitted and fastened together 
by strong cords, so as to resist the strain of voyages of 
many hundreds of miles in the open ocean. Their houses 
are of an oval form, supported on two lofty central 
pillars, and resting on a row of dwarf posts, the roof 
strongly formed of rafters and thatch. Their weapons 
are few and simple, and the art of making pottery is 
unknown; yet, as they are undoubtedly in a far higher 
state of civilisation, and far superior in mental capacity 
to many savage races who possess that art, it is a proof 
that we cannot measure the status of human advance¬ 
ment merely by proficiency in the mechanical arts. Hav¬ 
ing no vessels to boil water, their cooking is entirely 
performed by baking, generally in holes in the ground, a 
method which, although rude in appearance, is really 
so satisfactory that we cannot wonder at their not seeking 
for any other. 
Their clothing is simple, consisting of the ordinary 
T-bandage for the men, and for the women a neat girdle 
or petticoat formed of dracaena leaves. Sometimes the 
women use also a garment like the Peruvian poncho to 
cover the upper part of their bodies, and on state occa¬ 
sions the men drape themselves in voluminous folds of 
the beautiful tapa cloth. The men are usually tattooed 
in a variety of tasteful patterns from the navel to the 
thigh, and often around the mouth and eyes also, so that 
