from Piron Island. The
body of a canoe of this class is formed like the other, or more common
kind, of the hollowed out trunk of a large tree, tapering to a point and
rising slightly at the ends, which, however, are alike and covered over
by a close-fitting piece of wood, each end being thus converted into a
hollow cone. The sides are raised by a plank two feet high and end-boards
forming a kind of long box, with the seams pitched over. One side is
provided with an outrigger similar to that already described, and on the
other is a small stage, level with the gunwale, six feet long, planked
over, and projecting four feet or thereabouts. The mast is a standing one
stepped into a board in the bottom--it is lashed to a stout transverse
pole, and is further supported by two fore and aft stays. The halyards
reeve through a hole in a projecting arm a foot long at the masthead. But
the sail forms the most curious feature in the whole affair.* It measures
about fifteen feet in width by eight in depth and is made of rather fine
matting stretched between two yards and rounded at the sides. The sail
when not in use is rolled up and laid along the platform--when hoisted it
stretches obliquely upwards across the mast, confined by the stays, with
the lower and foremost corner resting on the stage and the tack secured
to the foot of the mast. Both ends being alike, the mast central, and the
sail large and manageable, a canoe of this description is well adapted
for working to windward. Tacking is simply and expeditiously performed by
letting go the tack, hauling upon the sheet, and converting one into the
other. The large steering paddles are eight or nine feet long, with an
oblong rounded blade of half that length.

(*Footnote. The annexed illustration represents this kind of sail--it was
not however taken from the canoe in question, but on a subsequent
occasion, and at another part of the Louisiade Archipelago.)

WATERING-CREEK ON SOUTH-EAST ISLAND. ITS SCENERY.

June 26th.

Yesterday afternoon the Rattlesnake was removed to the neighbourhood of
the proposed watering-place on South-east Island, and anchored in
seventeen fathoms, mud, a mile off shore. Soon after daylight I
accompanied Captain Stanley and a party in two boats to ascend the
neighbouring creek and determine whether a practicable watering-place
existed there. For several hundred yards above the entrance we found the
channel preserving a nearly uniform width of about fi