Page:Hawaiki The Original Home of the Maori.djvu/147

Rh 60 feet long, double, with covered ends, platforms, &c., and capable of carrying fifty fighting men. He adds in a note, "In Captain Cook's Voyages, a description is given of one 108 feet long." He also refers to the va'a-motu, or island canoe, a large strong single vessel, with outrigger used in distant voyages. They carried two masts, the sails being made—as is usual—of matting and of the common triangular shape, the apex being below. He says, "In long voyages the single canoes are considered safer than the double ones, as the latter are sometimes broken asunder and then become unmanageable." At page 181 (loc. cit.) he says, "The natives of the Eastern islands (Pau-motu group) frequently come down to the Society Islands in large double canoes which the Tahitians dignify with the name of pahi the (modern) name for a ship. They are built with much smaller pieces of wood than those employed in the structure of the Tahitian canoes, as the low coralline islands produce but very small kinds of timber, yet they are much superior both for strength, convenience, and for sustaining a tempest at sea. They are always double, and one canoe has a permanent covered residence for the crew. The two masts are also stationary, and a kind of ladder or wooden shroud extends from the sides to the head of the mast. . . One canoe that brought over a chief from Rurutu (Austral group, south of Tahiti) upwards of 300 miles, was very large. It was somewhat in the shape of a crescent the stem and stern high and pointed, and the sides deep; the depth from the upper edge of the middle to the keel, was not less than 12 feet. It was built of thick planks of the Barringtonia, some of which were four feet wide; they were sewn together with coconut sinnet, and although they brought the chief safely probably more than 600 miles, they must have been ungovernable and unsafe in a storm or heavy sea." The high stem and stern