THROUGH HAWAII. 401 
infirm, emaciated, or deformed they might be when 
they went into the water, they invariably came ont 
young, strong, and handsome. 
Without making further remarks, these traditions fur¬ 
nish very strong evidence that the Sandwich Islanders 
were acquainted with the existence of the Marquesian 
and Society Islands long before visited by Captain 
Cook; and they also warrant the inference, that in 
some remote period the Sandwich Islanders have 
visited or colonized other islands in the Pacific. 
About three p. m. we reached Owawarua, a consider¬ 
able village on the north-west coast, inhabited mostly 
by fishermen. Here we tried to collect a congregation, 
but only three women and two small children remained 
in the place, the rest having gone to Waimea to fetch 
sandal wood for Karaiomoku. From Owawarua we 
passed on to Hihiu, where we had an opportunity of 
speaking to a small party of natives. 
In these villages we saw numbers of canoes and 
many large fishing nets, which are generally made with 
a native kind of flax, very strong and durable, but 
produced by a plant very different from that called 
the phormium tenax , which furnishes the flax of New 
Zealand, and bearing a nearer resemblance to the plant 
used by the natives of the Society Islands, called roa, 
the urtica argentea, or candicans of Parkinson. In 
taking fish out at sea, they commonly make use of a 
net, of which they have many kinds, some very large, 
others mere hand-nets; they occasionally employ the 
hook and line, but never use the spear or dart, which 
is a favourite weapon with the southern islanders. 
Quantities of fish were spread out in the sun to dry, 
in several places, and the inhabitants of the northern 
3 F 
