Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 2 (Stockdale).djvu/320

264 canoe, with their bows and arrows, which fell into the hands of our boat's crew.

All these canoes have out-riggers, and are constructed as represented in Plate XLVI. Fig. 3. Their bows are placed upon the platform, situated between the canoe and the out-rigger, and formed of close wicker work. The body of the canoes is in general fifteen feet long and six in width. It is of a single piece cut out of the trunk of a tree, very light, and almost as soft as the wood of the mapou. There is through the whole length an excavation of five inches wide. Here the rowers sit with their legs one before the other, and up to the calf in the hollow. They are seated on the upper part, which is smooth. At each of the extremities, which are formed like a heart, we observed two T's, the one above the other, cut out, but not very deep, and sometimes in relievo. The lower part of the canoe is very well formed for moving through the water. The out-rigger is always on the left of the rowers.

These islanders are accustomed to chew betel. They keep the leaves of it with areca-nuts, in small bags made of matting, or of the outer covering of the cocoa-nuts. The lime which they mix with it is carried in bamboo canes, or in calebashes.

These people are, in general, of a deep olive