FIRST APPEARANCE OF SHIPS. 38 5 
had thence inferred that at some future period they 
might behold larger vessels equally destitute of 
any exterior balancing power. They in general 
consider the use of boats and shipping among 
them as an accomplishment of his prediction. 
The islanders also state, that there is another pre¬ 
diction, still to be fulfilled ; and although it appears 
to them as great an improbability as the former, 
yet the actual appearance of one, leads many to 
think that possibly they may witness the other. 
This remaining prediction also has reference to a 
ship, and declares that after the arrival of a 
canoe without an outrigger, e vaa taura ore , a 
boat, or vessel, without ropes or cordage, shall 
come among them. What idea Maui designed to 
convey by this declaration, it is perhaps not easy 
to ascertain; but the people' say it is next to 
impossible that the masts should be sustained, the 
sails attached, or the vessel worked, without ropes 
or cordage. They say, however, that one predic¬ 
tion respecting the vessels has been accomplished, 
but that the other remains to be realized. 1 have 
often thought, when contemplating the little use 
of rigging on board our steam-vessels, that should 
a specimen of this modern invention ever reach 
the South Sea Islands, although the natives would 
not, perhaps, like the inhabitants of the banks of 
the Ganges, be ready to fall down and worship this 
wonderful exhibition of mechanical skill, they 
would be equally astonished at that power within 
itself by which it would be propelled, and would 
at once declare that the second prediction of Maui 
was accomplished, and the vessel without rigging 
or cordage had arrived. 
They have other predictions, but less circum¬ 
stantial or probable, yet I could not learn that 
2 c 
