Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/218

160 visions and place to store them in, as well as water, of which they carry a tolerable stock in bamboos.

All the boats are disproportionately narrow in respect to their length, which causes them to be very easily overset, so that not even the Indians dare venture in them till they are fitted with a contrivance to prevent this inconvenience, which is done, either by fastening two together side by side, as has been before described, in which case one supports the other and they become as steady a vehicle as can be imagined; or, if one of them is going out alone, by fastening a log of wood to two poles laid across the boat: this serves to balance it tolerably, though not so securely, but that I have seen the Indians overturn them very often. This is the same principle as that adopted in the flying proa of the Ladrone Islands described in Lord Anson's voyage, where it is called an outrigger; indeed, the vessels themselves as much resemble the flying proa as to make appear at least possible that either the latter is a very artful improvement of these, or these a very awkward imitation of the proa.

These boats are propelled with large paddles, which have a long handle and a flat blade resembling, more than anything I can recollect, a baker's peel; of these every person in the boat generally has one, except those who sit under the houses; and with these they push themselves on fairly fast through the water. The boats are so leaky, however, that one person at least is employed almost constantly in throwing out the water. The only thing in which they excel is landing in a surf, for by reason of their great length and high sterns they land dry when our boats could scarcely land at all, and in the same manner they put off from the shore, as I have often experienced.

When sailing, they have either one or two masts fitted to a frame which is above the canoe: they are made of a single stick; in one that I measured of 32 feet in length, the mast was 25 feet high, which seems to be about the common proportion. To this is fastened a sail about one-third longer, but narrow and of a triangular shape, pointed at the top, and the outside curved; it is bordered