s about fourteen feet high, two broad, and one inch and a
half thick. They both consisted of boards of carved work, of which the
design was much better than the execution. All their canoes, except a
few at Opoorage or Mercury Bay, which were of one piece, and hollowed by
fire, are built after this plan, and few are less than twenty feet long.
Some of the smaller sort have outriggers; and sometimes two are joined
together, but this is not common.

"The carving upon the stern and head ornaments of the inferior boats,
which seemed to be intended wholly for fishing, consists of the figure
of a man, with the face as ugly as can be conceived, and a monstrous
tongue thrust out of the mouth, with the white shells of sea-ears stuck
in for eyes. But the canoes of the superior kind, which seem to be
their men-of-war, are magnificently adorned with openwork, and covered
with loose fringes of black feathers, which had a most elegant
appearance. The gunwale boards were also frequently carved in a
grotesque taste, and adorned with tufts of white feathers placed upon
black ground. The paddles are small and neatly made. The blade is of
an oval shape, or rather of a shape resembling a large leaf, pointed at
the bottom, broadest in the middle, and gradually losing itself in the
shaft, the whole length being about six feet. By the help of these oars
they push on their boats with amazing velocity."

Mr Ellis, to whose book reference has already been made, and who
visited the South Sea Islands nearly half a century later than Cook,
tells us that the _single canoes_ used by some of the islanders are far
safer than the _double canoes_ for long voyages, as the latter are apt
to be torn asunder during a storm, and then they cannot be prevented
from constantly upsetting.

Single canoes are not so easily separated from their outrigger.
Nevertheless they are sometimes upset in rough seas; but the natives
don't much mind this. When a canoe is upset and fills, the natives, who
learn to swim like ducks almost as soon as they can walk, seize hold of
one end of the canoe, which they press down so as to elevate the other
end above the sea, by which means a great part of the water runs out;
they then suddenly loose their hold, and the canoe falls back on the
water, emptied in some degree of its contents. Swimming along by the
side of it, they bale out the rest, and climbing into it, pursue their
voyage.

Europeans, however, are not so indiffe