t again, or to
empty out the water, for they could not prevent their incessant
overturning. As their only resource, they collected the scattered spars
and boards, and constructed a raft, on which they hoped they might drift
to land. The weight of the whole number who were collected on the raft
was so great as to sink it so far below the surface that they stood
above their knees in water. They made very little progress, and soon
became exhausted by fatigue and hunger. In this condition they were
attacked by a number of sharks. Destitute of a knife or any other
weapon of defence, they fell an easy prey to these rapacious monsters.
One after another was seized and devoured, or carried away by them, and
the survivors, who with dreadful anguish beheld their companions thus
destroyed, saw the number of their assailants apparently increasing, as
each body was carried off until only two or three remained.

"The raft, thus lightened of its load, rose to the surface of the water,
and placed them beyond the reach of the voracious jaws of their
relentless destroyers. The tide and current soon carried them to the
shore, where they landed to tell the melancholy fate of their
fellow-voyagers."

Captain Cook refers to the canoes of New Zealand thus:--

"The ingenuity of these people appears in nothing more than in their
canoes. They are long and narrow, and in shape very much resemble a New
England whale-boat. The larger sort seem to be built chiefly for war,
and will carry from forty to eighty or a hundred armed men. We measured
one which lay ashore at Tolaga; she was sixty-eight and a half feet
long, five feet broad, and three and a half feet deep. The bottom was
sharp, with straight sides like a wedge, and consisted of three lengths,
hollowed out to about two inches, or one inch and a half thick, and well
fastened together with strong plaiting. Each side consisted of one
entire plank, sixty-three feet long, ten or twelve inches broad, and
about one inch and a quarter thick; and these were fitted and lashed to
the bottom part with great dexterity and strength.

"A considerable number of thwarts were laid from gunwale to gunwale, to
which they were securely lashed on each side, as a strengthening to the
boat. The ornament at the head projected five or six feet beyond the
body, and was about four and a half feet high. The ornament at the
stern was fixed upon that end as the stern-post of a ship is upon her
keel, and wa