Page:A voyage round the world, in His Britannic Majesty's sloop, Resolution, commanded by Capt. James Cook, during the years 1772, 3, 4, and 5 (IA b30413849 0001).pdf/247

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of this sound. He had cultivated a spot of ground on the beach of Long Island, another on the Hippah rock, two more on the Motu-Aro, and one of considerable extent at the bottom of Ship Cove, where our vessels lay at anchor. He chiefly endeavoured to raise such vegetables as have useful and nutritive roots, and among them particularly potatoes, of which we had been able to preserve but few in a state of vegetation. He had likewise sown corn of several sorts, beans, kidney-beans, and pease, and devoted the latter part of his stay in great measure to these occupations.

Early on the first of June several canoes full of natives came on board, whom we had not seen before. Their canoes were of different sizes, and three of them had sails, which are but seldom seen among them. The sail consisted of a large triangular mat, and was fixed to a mast, and a boom joining below in an acute angle, which could both be struck with the greatest facility. The upper edge, or broadest part of the sail, had five tufts of brown feathers on its extremity. The bottom of these canoes consisted of a long hollow trunk of a tree, and the sides were made of several boards or planks above each other, which were united by means of a number of strings of the New Zeeland flax-plant, passed through small holes, and tied very fast. The seams between them are caulked with the downy or woolly substance of the reed-mace (typha latifolia.) Some of the ca- Rh