172 
POLYNESIAN RESEARCHES. 
branches or poles, used for rafters and other pur¬ 
poses, are soft and brittle, resembling the texture 
and strength of branches of the English willow. 
The foot of the rafter is partially sharpened, and 
about eighteen inches from the end a deep notch 
is cut, which receives the bevelled edge of the ra-pe , 
or wall-plate, while the upper extremity rests upon 
the ridge. The rafters are generally ranged along on 
one side, three feet apart, with parallel rafters on the 
opposite side, which cross each other at the top of 
the ridge, where they are firmly tied together with 
cord, or the strong fibres of the ieie, a tough 
mountain plant. A pole is then fixed along, above 
the junction of the opposite rafters, and the whole 
tied down to pegs fastened in the piece of timber 
forming the ridge. The large wood used in build¬ 
ing is of a fine yellow colour, the rafters are beauti¬ 
fully white; and as the house is often left some 
days in frame, its appearance is at once novel and 
agreeable. 
The buildings are thatched with ran far a, (the 
leaves of the pandanus,) which are prepared with 
great care. When first gathered from the trees, 
they are soaked three or four days in the sea, or a 
stream of water. The sound leaves are then se¬ 
lected, and each leaf, after having been stretched 
singly on a stick fixed in the ground, is coiled up 
with the concave side outwards. In this state they 
remain till they are perfectly flat, when each leaf 
is doubled about one-third of the way from the 
stalk, over a strong reed or cane six feet long, and 
the folded leaf laced together with the stiff stalks 
of the cocoa-nut leaflets. The thatch, thus pre¬ 
pared, is taken to the building, and a number of 
lines of cinet are extended above the rafters, and 
in each of the spaces between, from the lower edge 
