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/258

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two hollow semicylinders of wood, exactly fitted and moulded together, so as to form a perfect tube. Their double canoe was about fifty feet long, and seemed to be new; both the high stern and the head were very curiously carved with fretwork and spiral lines, as described in Capt. Cook's former voyage. A mishapen thing, which with some difficulty we perceived was meant to represent a human head, with a pair of eyes of mother of pearl, and a long tongue lolling out of its mouth, constituted the foremost extremity or prora of the canoe. This figure is the most common in all their ornaments, and principally in every thing that relates to warlike affairs. The custom of lolling out the tongue in contempt and defiance of the enemy, seems to have given rise to the frequent representations of it; the figure of the tongue forms the heads of their war-canoes, it is placed on the narrow extremity of their battle-axes, and they wear it on their breast, tied to a string round the neck; nay they carve it on their very scoops with which they bale the water, and on the paddles with which they manage their canoes.

These people made but a very short stay with us, for seeing it began to blow fresh, they all embarked and paddled over to the Motu-Aro. The captain, accompanied by several gentlemen, followed them about noon, and found seven canoes there hauled on shore, which had carried about ninety persons to that island, who were all busied