170 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
down to the Society Islands in large double canoes, 
which the Tahitians dignify with the name of pahi , 
the term for a ship. They are built with much 
smaller pieces of wood than those employed in the 
structure of the Tahitian canoes, as the low coral¬ 
line islands produce but very small kinds of tim¬ 
ber, yet they are much superior both for strength, 
convenience, and sustaining a tempest at sea. 
They are always double, and one canoe has a per¬ 
manent covered residence for the crew. The tw r o 
masts are also stationary, and a kind of ladder, or 
wooden shroud, extends from the sides to the head 
of the mast. The sails are large, and made with 
fine matting. Several of the principal chiefs 
possess a pahi paumotu, which they use as a more 
safe and convenient mode of conveyance than their 
own canoes. One canoe, that brought over a chief 
from Rurutu, upwards of three hundred miles, was 
very large. It was somewhat in the shape of a 
crescent, the stem and stern high and pointed, 
and the sides broad ; the depth from the upper 
edge of the middle to the keel, was not less than 
twelve feet. It was built with thick planks of 
the Barringtonia, some of which were four feet 
wide; they were sewn together with twisted or 
braided cocoa-nut husk, and although they brought 
the chief safely, probably more than six hundred 
miles, they must have been very ungovernable and 
unsafe in a storm or heavy sea. 
The paumotu canoes, in their size, shape, and 
thatched cabins, resemble those used by the in¬ 
habitants of some of the islands to the west, and of 
the Caroline islanders, more than those of New 
Zealand, Tahiti, or the Sandwich Islands. 
The building of their dwellings is another im¬ 
portant occupation of the islanders. Fa-re is the 
