Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/79

 ESTDIISTEIAL PKODTJCE, ETC. 65 portance of these artificers in such an archipelago as Fiji maybe readily conceived. The carpenters of the present day, however, are somewhat inferior to those who preceded them : neither is it difficult to account for this fact ; for they are ill paid, and a vigorous competitor has entered the field, with whom the present race are too dispirited to cope. The Tongans crowd the path of the carpenter, and, as the Chiefs of Fiji like to employ them, seem likely to thrust the native mechanic out of place and work. Carpenters (matai, literally, " mechanics ") constitute a caste, which bears in Fiji the sounding name of " King's carpenters," having Chiefs of their own, for whom and their work they show respect. A poor man whom I once saw on the beach, weeping bitterly, as he caressed the prow of a large canoe, proved to be one of this class. The canoe was the master-piece of his Chief, who, soon after its completion, was lost at sea. The sight of the vessel awoke recollections of his master's skill and untimely end, and he thus publicly honoured the one and lamented the other. Near by was another man, who for the same cause silently wept. Four classes of canoes are found in Fiji : the velovelo, the camakau, the tabilai, and the drua. All these have various modifications of the outrigger, (cama,) and are distinguished by peculiarities in the hulk. The velovelo^ or, more properly, the tahia^ is open throughout its length like a boat, and the spars to which the cama is secured, rest on the gunwale. The camakau^ as its name imports, has a solid spar for its cama : the hulk has a deck over the middle third of its length, twice its own width, and raised on a deep plank built edgeways on each gunwale. Between the edge of this deck and the outrigger all is open. The pro- jecting ends of the canoe, which are lower than the main-deck or plat- form, as much as the depth of the plank on which it is raised, are each covered with one solid triangular piece of wood, hollowed underneath, and thickest at the broad end next the centre deck, to which it thus forms a gradual ascent. The two ridges, formed by the hollomng underneath on the sides of the triangle, are imited to the edge of the hulk, so as completely to box it up. Tlie rig of the camakau is the same as that of the double canoe described presently ; and from the small resistance this build offers to the water, it is the " clipper " of Fiji, and the vessel described under the name oi pirogue in the Imperial Dictionary. TRAXSVERSE SECTION OP CAMAKAU.