Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/215

] are at an end, a great trade is carried on between them.

The General received as a present from Futtafaihe a little canoe with an out-rigger, which was immediately stowed near the main-chains. It was near ten feet long, a foot wide, and capable of carrying only two persons. These canoes are decked for about a fifth part of their length at each end, which is sufficient for them to navigate with security within the reefs; but their double canoes, being intended for the open sea, are decked throughout their whole length, except toward the middle, where a little opening is left for a man to go down and bale out the water when it is necessary.

I saw with admiration that these people had consulted nature in constructing their canoes for speed. The bottom nearly resembles the under part of a fish of the cetaceous kind, which swims with the greatest swiftness, darting along by bounds on the surface of the water, the delphinus delphis, the dolphin.

9th. King Toobou having heard that we were soon to quit the island, came to intreat us to postpone our departure, and appeared extremely sorry when he found us determined to go.

The natives imagined, no doubt, that we wished to lay in a great stock of bread-fruit, for they