with large round {tones, but it appeared not to be much
trodden, for the grafs every where grew up between them.
I endeavoured, w ith particular attention, todifcover whether
they had a religious worfhip among them, but never could
find the leaft traces of any.
The boats or canoes o f thefe people, are o f three different
forts. Some are made out o f a Angle tree, and carry from
two to fix men s thefe are ufed chiefly for fifiling, and we-
conftantly faw many o f them bufy upon the reef: fome
were conftrudted o f planks, very dexteroufly fewed together ::
thefe were of different fizes, and would carry from ten to
forty men. Two of them were generally lalhed together,
and two mafts fet up between them ; i f they were Angle,,
they had an out-rigger on one fide, and only one mail in the
middle. With thefe veflels they fail far beyond the fight of
land, probably to other iflands, and bring home plantains,
bananas, and yams, which feem alfo- to be more plenty
upon other parts of this ifland, than that o f which the fhip
lay. A third fort feem to be intended principally for plea-
fure and fhow: they are very large, but have no fail, and in
fhape referable the gondolas o f V en ice : the middle is
covered with a large awning, and fome of the people fit
upon it, fome under it. None of thefe veflels came near the
fhip, except on the firft and feeond day after our arrival; but
we faw, three or four times a week, a proceflion of eight or
ten o f them palling at a diftan’ce, with ftreamers flying, and
a great number of fmall canoes attending them, while many
hundreds of people ran a-breaff of them along the fliore.
They generally rowed to the outward point of a reef which
lay about four miles to the weftward o f us, where they
flayed about an hour, and then returned. Thefe procef-
fions, however, are never made but in fine weather, and all
the
the people on board are drefled; though in the other canoes 1767-
they have only a piece o f cloth wrapped round their middle. «----,—
Thofe who rowed and fleered were drefled in white ; thofe
who fat upon the awning and under it in white and red, and
two men who were mounted on the prow o f each veflel,
were drefled in red only. We fometimes went out to obferve
them in our boats, and though we were never nearer than a
mile, we fa w them with our glafies as diftinctly as if we had
been upon the fpot.
The plank of which thefe veflels are conftrudted, is made
by fplitting a tree, with the grain, into as many thin pieces
as they can. They firft fell the tree with a kind of hatchet,
or adze, made of a tough greenilh kind of ftone, very dex-
teroufly fitted into a handle; it is then cut into fuch lengths
as are required for the plank, one end of which is heated
till it begins to crack, and then with wedges o f hard wood
they fplit it down: fome of thefe planks are two feet broad,
and from 15 to 20 feet long. The fides are fmoothed with
adzes o f the fame materials and conftrudtion, but o f a
fmaller fize. Six or eight men are fometimes at work upon
the fame plank together, and, as their tools prefently lofe
their edge, every man has by him a cocoa-nut fhell filled
with water, and a flat ftone, with which he fharpens his
adze almoft every minute. Thefe planks are generally
brought to the thicknefs o f about an inch, and are afterwards
fitted to the boat with the fame exaftnefs that would
be expefted from an expert joiner. To fallen thefe planks
together, holes are bored with a piece of bone that is fixed
into a flick for that purpofe, a ufe to which our nails were
afterwards applied with great advantage, and through thefe
holes a kind o f plaited cordage is palled, fo as to hold the
planks ftrongly together: the feams are caulked with dried
rulhes, and the whole outfide o f the veflel is paid with a
M m 2 gummy