1774-
A p r il . as we afterwards learned, were the marks of the divifions
under the different commanders. At the head there was
a. tall pillar of carved-work, orr the top of which flood
the figure of a man, or rather of an urchin, whofe face
was commonly fhaded by a board like a bonnet, and fome-
times painted red with ochre. Thefe pillars were generally
covered with bunches of black feathers, and long
dreamers of feathers hung from them. The gunwale of
the canoes was commonly two or three feet above the water,
but not always formed in the fame manner ; for fome
had flat bottoms, and fides-nearly perpendicular upon them,
whilft others were bow-fided, with a fharp keel, like the
feCtion drawn in captain Cook’s firft voyage *. A fighting
ftage was erebled towards the head of the boat, and refted
on pillars from four to fix feet high, generally ornamented
with carving. This ftage extended beyond the whole
breadth of the double canoe, and was from twenty to
twenty-four feet long, and about eight or ten feet wide.
The rowers fat in the canoe, or under the fighting flage
on the platform, which confifted of .the tranfverfe beams
and longitudinal fpars ; fo that wherever thefe crofled, there
was room for one man in the compartment. Thofe which
had eighteen beams, and three longitudinal fpars on each
fide, befides one longitudinal fpar between the two canoes,
* See Hawkefworth, vol, II. p. 225.
had confequently no lefs than a hundred and forty-four a™?
rowers, befides eight men to fleer them, four of whom
were placed in each ftern. This however was not the cafe
with the greateft part of the canoes here affembled, which
had no projecting platforms, and where the rowers or pad-
dlers fat in the hulls of the canoe. The warriors were
Rationed on the fighting ftage, to the number of fifteen or
twenty. Their drefs was the molt lingular, and at the fame
time the moft fhewy light in the whole fleet. They had
three large and ample pieces of cloth, with a hole in the
middle, put on one above another. The undermoft and
largeft was white, the next red', and the uppermoft and
fhorteft brown. Their targets or breaft plates were made
of wicker-work, covered with feathers and fhark’s teeth,
and hardly any of the warriors were without them. On
the contrary, thofe who wore helmets were few in number.
Thefe helmets were of an enormous fize, being near-
five feet high. They confifted of a long cylindrical bafket
of wicker-work, of which the foremoft half was hid by -
a femicylinder of a clofer texture, which became broader
towards the top, and there feparated from- the bafket, fo
as to come forwards in a curve. This frontlet, o f the length >
of four feet, was clofely covered with the glofly bluifh green -
feathers of a fort of pigeon, and with an elegant border
of white plumes. A prodigious number of the long tail
feathers of tropic birds diverged from its edges, in a radi