Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/144

132 double, with a platform between them, and very often carrying a small house built on the platform. Besides the express statement in some of the traditions as to the use of double canoes, it is probable that all those that made the

voyage from the Central Pacific to New Zealand, were double, or were large canoes with outriggers, which gave them a much greater stability. Even so late as 1830 the double canoe has been used in New Zealand, and there are a few spacimens still to be seen in the Islands. The following is a description of the old Samoan double canoe as supplied by one who had seen them:—