e size placed parallel to each other, three or four feet
apart, and secured in their places by four or five pieces of wood,
curved just in the shape of a bit-stock. These are lashed to both
canoes with the strongest cinet, made of cocoa-nut fibre, so as to make
the two almost as much one as same of the double ferry-boats that ply
between Brooklyn and New York. A flattened arch is thus made by the
bow-like cross-pieces over the space between the canoes, upon which a
board or a couple of stout poles laid lengthwise constitute an elevated
platform for passengers and freight, while those who paddle and steer
sit in the bodies of the canoes at the sides. A slender mast, which may
be unstepped in a minute, rises from about the centre of this platform,
to give support to a very simple sail, now universally made of white
cotton cloth, but formerly of mats."

The double canoes belonging to the chiefs of the South Sea islanders are
the largest,--some of them being nearly seventy feet long, yet they are
each only about two feet wide and three or four feet deep. The sterns
are remarkably high--fifteen or eighteen feet above the water.

The war canoes are also large and compactly built; the stern being low
and covered, so as to afford shelter from stones and darts. A rude
imitation of a head or some grotesque figure is usually carved on the
stern; while the stem is elevated, curved like the neck of a swan, and
terminates frequently in the carved figure of a bird's head. These
canoes are capable of holding fifty warriors. Captain Cook describes
some as being one hundred and eight feet long. All of them, whether
single or double, mercantile or war canoes, are propelled by paddles,
the men sitting with their faces in the direction in which they are
going.

As may be supposed, these canoes are often upset in rough weather; but
as the South Sea islanders are expert swimmers, they generally manage to
right their canoes and scramble into them again. Their only fear on
such occasions is being attacked by sharks. Ellis, in his interesting
book, "Polynesian Researches," relates an instance of this kind of
attack which was made upon a number of chiefs and people--about
thirty-two--who were passing from one island to another in a large
double canoe:--"They were overtaken by a tempest, the violence of which
tore their canoes from the horizontal spars by which they were united.
It was in vain for them to endeavour to place them uprigh