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POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
piece of native workmanship, well built. The keel, or 
bottom, was formed with a number of pieces of tough 
Tamanu wood, inophyllum callophyllum^ twelve or six¬ 
teen inches broad, and two inches thick, hollowed on 
the inside, and rounded without, so as to form a convex 
angle along the bottom of the canoe; these were fastened 
together by lacings of tough elastic cinet, made with the 
fibres of the cocoa-nut husk. On the front end of the keel, 
a solid piece, cut out of the trunk of a tree, so contrived as 
to constitute the forepart of the canoe; was fixed with the 
same lashing; and on the upper part of it, a thick board 
or plank projected horizontally, and formed a line 
parallel with the surface of the water. This front piece, 
usually five or six feet long, and twelve or eighteen inches 
wide, was called the ihu vaa^ nose of the canoe, and, 
without any joining, comprised the stem, bows, and 
bowsprit of the vessel. 
The sides of the canoe were composed of two lines 
of short plank or board, an inch and a half or two 
inches thick. The lowest line was convex on the 
outside, and nine or twelve inches broad; the upper 
one straight. The stern was considerably elevated, 
the keel was inclined upwards, and the lower part 
of the stern resembled the bottom of a pointed shield, 
while the upper part of the noo, or stern, was nine or 
ten feet above the level of the sides. The whole was 
fastened together with cinet, not continued along the 
seams, but by two, or at most, three holes made in each 
board, within an inch of each other, and corresponding 
holes made in the opposite piece, and the cinet passed 
through from one to the other. A space of nine inches 
or a foot was left, and then a similar set of holes 
made. The joints or seams were not grooved together. 
