298 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
contrast with the dark and almost midnight gloom that 
enveloped every other object. 
Since their intercourse with Europeans, English-made 
steel hooks have been introduced. They like their sharp¬ 
ness at the point, but usually complain of them as too 
open or wide. For some kinds of fish they are prefer¬ 
red, but for most they find the mother-of-pearl hooks 
answer much better. Every fisherman, I believe, would 
rather have a wrought-iron nail three or four inches 
long, or a piece of iron-wire of the size, and make a hook 
according to his own mind, than have the best European- 
made hook that could be given to him. Most of the 
nails they formerly procured from the shipping were 
used for this purpose, and highly prized. 
Their ideas of the nature of these valuable articles 
were very singular. Perceiving, in their shape and 
colour, a resemblance to the young shoots or scions that 
grow from the roots of the bread-fruit trees, they 
imagined that they were a hard kind of plant, and pro¬ 
cured in the same way. Anxious to secure a more abun* 
dant supply, they divided the first parcel of nails ever 
received, carried part to the temple, and deposited them 
on the altar; the rest they actually planted in their 
gardens, and awaited their growth with the highest anti¬ 
cipation. In the manufacture of hooks from nails, they 
manifested great patience and persevering labour: they 
had no files, but sharpened the points, and rounded the 
angles, by rubbing the nail on a stone; they also used a 
stone, in bending it to the required shape. The use of 
files, however, has greatly facilitated their operations in 
the manufacture of fish-hooks. 
In connexion with this subject, a striking instance of 
native simplicity and honesty occurred about the time of 
