ollow out the
log some fifteen feet long, for a common fishing canoe in which one or
two men can sit. But the more carefully-built canoe, with a number of
separate planks raised from a keel, was the work of a distinct and not
very numerous class of professed carpenters. The keel was laid in one
piece, twenty-five to fifty feet long, as the size of the canoe might
be, and to that they added board after board, not by overlapping and
nailing, but by _sewing_ each close to its fellow, until they had
raised it some two, or, it might be, three feet from the ground. These
boards were not sawn, squared, and uniform, but were a number of
pieces, or _patches_, as they are called, varying in size from
eighteen inches to five feet long, as the wood split up from the log
with felling axes happens to suit; all, however, were well fastened
together, and, with the help of a little gum of the bread-fruit tree
for pitch, the whole was perfectly water-tight. In dressing each
board, they left a ledge, or rim, all round the edge, which was to be
inside, making it double the thickness at the edge to what it was in
the middle of the board. It is through this ledge or rim they bored
the holes, and with a few turns of cinnet sewed tight one board to the
other. The sewing only appeared on the inside. Outside all was smooth
and neat; and it was only on close inspection you could see that there
was a join at all. They had timbers, thwarts, and gunwale, to keep all
tight; and over a few feet at the bow and the stern they had a deck,
under which they could stow away anything. The decked part at the bow
was the seat of honour, and there you generally saw the chief of the
travelling party sitting cross-legged, at his ease, while the others
were paddling.

The width of a canoe varied from eighteen to thirty inches; the
length, from fifteen to fifty feet. But for an outrigger, it was
impossible to keep such a long, narrow thing steady in the water. The
outrigger may be described, in any boat, by laying oars across at
equal distances, say one right above a thwart. Make fast the handle of
each oar to the gunwale on the starboard side of the boat, and let the
oars project on the larboard side. To the end of each projecting oar
make fast four small sticks running down towards the water, and let
their ends also be fastened to a long thick piece of wood, sharp at
the one end to cut through the water, and floating on the surface
parallel to the boat. This bei