Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/174

116 describe everything of this kind from the commonest size). The next stage, under b b, is formed of straight planks about 4 feet long, 15 inches broad, and 2 inches thick. The third stage, under c c, is made, like the bottom, of trunks of trees hollowed out into its bilging form. The last stage, above c c, is formed also out of the trunks of trees, so that the moulding is of one piece with the plank. This work, difficult as it would be to an European with his iron tools, they perform without iron and with amazing dexterity. They hollow out with their stone axes as fast, at least, as our carpenters could do, and dubb, though slowly, with prodigious nicety. I have seen them take off the skin of an angular plank without missing a stroke, the skin itself scarce one-sixteenth part of an inch in thickness. Boring the holes through which their sewing is to pass seems to be their greatest difficulty. Their tools are made of the bones of men, generally the thin bone of the upper arm; these they grind very sharp and fix to a handle of wood, making the instrument serve the purpose of a gouge, by striking it with a mallet made of hard black wood. With them they would do as much work as with iron, were it not that the brittle edge of the tool is very liable to be broken. When they have prepared their planks, etc., the keel is laid on blocks and the whole canoe put together much in the same manner as we do a ship, the sides being supported by stanchions and all the seams wedged together before the last sewing is put on, so that they become tolerably tight, considering that they are without caulking.

With these boats they venture themselves out of sight of land: we saw several of them at Otahite which had come from Ulhietea; and Tupia has told us that they undertake voyages of twenty days; whether this is true or false I do not affirm. They keep the boats very carefully under such boat-houses as are described on p. 111.

22nd. We saw a double pahie such as that described yesterday, but much longer. She had upon her an awning supported by pillars, which held the floor at least four feet above the deck or upper surface of the boats. We saw