POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
175 
attached to the masts and sails, though they are now 
seldom used, A small kind of house or awning was 
erected in the centre, or attached to the stern, to skreen 
the passengers from the sun by day and the damp by 
night. The latter is still used, though the former is but 
seldom seen. They do not appear ever to have orna¬ 
mented the body or hull of their vessels with carving or 
painting; but, notwithstanding this seeming deficiency, 
they had by no means an unfinished appearance. 
In building their vessels, all the parts were first accu¬ 
rately fitted to each other, the whole was taken to pieces, 
and the outside of each plank smoothed by rubbing it 
with a piece of coral and sand moistened with water; 
it was then dried, and polished with fine dry coral. The 
wood was generally of a rich yellow colour, the cinet 
nearly the same, and a new well-built canoe is perhaps 
one of the best specimens of native skill, ingenuity, and 
perseverance, to be seen in the islands. Most of the 
natives can hollow out a buhoe, but it is only those who 
have been regularly trained to the work, that can build 
a large canoe, and in this there is a considerable division 
of labour,^—some laying down the keel and building the 
hull, some making and fixing the sails, and others 
fastening the outriggers, or adding the ornaments. The 
principal chiefs usually kept canoe-builders attached to 
their establishments, but the inferior chiefs generally 
hired workmen, paying them a given number of pigs, or 
fathoms of cloth, for a canoe, and finding them in pro¬ 
vision while they are employed. The trees that are cut 
down in the mountains, or the interior of the islands, are 
often hollowed out there, sometimes by burning, but 
generally by the adze, or cut into the shape designed 
and then brought down to the shore. 
