Whatever it was, we were heartily glad to see the last of the beast,
fervently hoping we should never meet with another like him.

During the progress of these melancholy operations we had drifted a
considerable distance out of our course, no attention being paid, as
usual, to the direction of our drift until the greasy work was
done. Once the mess was cleared away, we hauled up again for our
objective--Futuna--which, as it was but a few hours' sail distant, we
hoped to make the next day.

CHAPTER XXIII. AT FUTUNA, RECRUITING

Sure enough, in accordance with our expectations, break of day revealed
the twin masses of Futuna ahead, some ten or fifteen miles away. With
the fine, steady breeze blowing, by breakfast-time we were off the
entrance to a pretty bight, where sail was shortened and the ship
hove-to. Captain Count did not intend to anchor, for reasons of his
own, he being assured that there was no need to do so. Nor was there.
Although the distance from the beach was considerable, we could see
numbers of canoes putting off, and soon they began to arrive. Now, some
of the South Sea Islands are famous for the elegance and seaworthiness
of their canoes; nearly all of them have a distinctly definite style
of canoe-building; but here at Futuna was a bewildering collection of
almost every type of canoe in the wide world. Dugouts, with outriggers
on one side, on both sides, with none at all; canoes built like boats,
like prams, like irregular egg-boxes, many looking like the first boyish
attempt to knock something together that would float; and--not to
unduly prolong the list by attempted classification of these unclassed
craft--CORACLES. Yes; in that lonely Pacific island, among that motley
crowd of floating nondescripts, were specimens of the ancient coracle
of our own islands, constructed in exactly the same way; that is, of
wicker-work, covered with some waterproof substance, whether skin or
tarpaulin. But the ingenious Kanaka, not content with his coracles,
had gone one better, and copied them in dugouts of solid timber. The
resultant vessel was a sort of cross between a butcher's tray and a
wash-basin--

"A thing beyond Conception: such a wretched wherry, Perhaps ne'er
ventured on a pond, Or crossed a ferry."

The proud possessors of the coracles, both wicker and wood, must have
been poor indeed, for they did not even own a paddle, propelling their
basins through the water with their hands. It may be