bark of the bread-fruit tree.

A number of canoes came alongside, bringing turkeys, fowls, eggs, and a
variety of fruits and vegetables, among which were pine-apples, bananas,
yams, sweet potatoes, cabbages, and onions. Besides cotton, the natives
produce tobacco for their own use, and probably, before long, cotton
manufactures will supersede the Tapa. Although the former will be more
useful, it has not the elegance of the native cloth.

We visited a chapel built in the native style; it was upwards of a
hundred feet long by forty-five wide, and nearly thirty high. It had a
high-pitched roof, with curved ends, and two rows of columns, each three
of the lower column supported a short beam, from which sprang a second
series bearing the ridge-pole. These, as well as the horizontal beam,
were beautifully ornamented with cocoanut plait, so arranged as to give
the appearance of Grecian mouldings, of infinite variety and delicate
gradations of colour--black, with the different shades of red and
yellow, being those employed. Altogether the effect was very artistic
and pleasing.

The Tongans are said to be the best canoe builders and navigators in the
Pacific. One of the chiefs exhibited, with some pride, a large double
canoe, which consisted in the first place of a canoe a hundred feet in
length, and half a dozen or more in width; the second canoe was composed
of a tree hollowed out for the sake of buoyancy like the canoe, but was,
in reality, merely an outrigger. The large canoe was formed of planks
lashed together with cocoanut plait; beams were then laid between the
two, on which was erected a house for the stowage of provisions; above
this rose a platform surrounded by a railing, forming the deck of the
vessel. It had been built by Tongans in the Fijis, where suitable
timber could alone be procured. These vessels, frail and unwieldy as
they appear, are navigated in the face of the trade wind between two and
three hundred miles, the Tongans making voyages to Fiji and also to
Samoa. We were told that six years are required to build one. The
sail, formed of matting, is triangular, spread on a long yard. The
vessel is never tacked, but the sail is lowered, shifted over, and again
hoisted when beating to windward.

We made the acquaintance of a young chief--greatly resembling our Samoan
friend Toa--who offered to show us some interesting caverns which exist
along the coast. The distance was too great for the ladi