842 
MISSIONARY TOUR 
The canoes of the Sandwich Islands appear emi¬ 
nently calculated for swiftness, being long, narrow, 
generally light, and drawing but little water. A canoe 
is always made out of a single tree; some of them are 
upwards of seventy feet long, one or two feet wide, 
and sometimes more than three feet deep, though in 
length they seldom exceed fifty feet. The body of the 
canoe is generally covered with a black paint, made 
by the natives with various earthy and vegetable ma¬ 
terials, in which the bark, oil, and burnt nuts of the 
kuJcni tree are the principal ingredients. On the upper 
edge of the canoe is sewed, in a remarkably neat man¬ 
ner, a small strip of hard white wood, from six to 
eight inches in width, according to the size and length 
of the canoe. These strips meet and close over the 
top at both stem and stern, and shoot off much water 
that would otherwise enter the canoe. All the canoes 
of these islands are remarkably strong and neatly 
made; and though not so large as those of New Zea¬ 
land, the Society Islands, or some of the other islands 
to the southward, are certainly better made; and 
would probably paddle or sail faster than any of them. 
One man will sometimes paddle a single canoe faster 
than a good boat’s crew could row a whale-boat. 
Their tackling is simple and convenient; the mast 
generally has a notch cut at the lower end, and is 
placed on one of the cross pieces to which it is tied; 
the sails they now use, are made of mats, and cut in 
imitation of the sprit-sails of foreign boats, which, they 
say, they find much better than the kind of sail they 
had when first visited by foreigners. When sailing 
with a fresh breeze, the ropes from the lower corners 
of the sails are always loosened, and held in the hands 
