sizes: some, that are intended for felling, weigh from six to eight pounds; others, that are used for carving, not more than so many ounces; but it is necessary to sharpen both almost every minute; for which purpose a stone and a cocoa-nut shell full of water are always at hand.

Their greatest exploit, to which these tools are less equal than to any other, is felling a tree: this requires many hands, and the constant labour

of several days. When it is down, they split it with the grain into planks from three to four inches thick, the whole length and breadth of the tree, many of which are eight feet in the girth, and forty to the branches, nearly of the same thickness throughout. The tree generally used is, in their language, called avie, the stem of which is tall and straight; though some of the smaller boats are made of the bread-fruit tree, which is a light, spongy wood, and easily wrought. They smooth the plank very expeditiously and dexterously with their adzes, and can take off a thin coat from a whole plank without missing a stroke. As they have not the art of warping a plank, every part of the canoe, whether hollow or flat, is shaped by hand.

The canoes, or boats, which are used by the inhabitants of this and the neighbouring islands, may be divided into two general classes; one of which they call irahahs, the other pahies. The Ivahah is used for short excursions to sea, and is wall-sided and flat-bottomed; the Pahie, for longer voyages, and is bow-sided and sharp-bottomed. The Ivahas are all of the

same figure, but of different sizes, and used for different purposes: their length is from seventy-two feet to ten, but the breadth is by no means in proportion; for those of ten feet are about a foot wide, and those of more than seventy are scarcely two. There is the fighting Ivahah, the fishing Ivahah, and the travelling Ivahah-for some of these go from one island to another. The fighting Ivahah is by far the longest, and the head and stern are considerably raised above the body, in a semicircular form; particularly the stern, which is sometimes seventeen or eighteen feet high, though the boat itself is scarcely three. These never go to sea single, but are fastened together, side by side, at the distance of about three feet, by strong poles of wood, which are laid across them and lashed to the gunwales. Upon these, in the fore part, a stage or platform is raised, about ten or twelve feet long, and somewhat wider than the boats, which is supported by pillars about six feet high: upon this stage stand the fighting men, whose missile weapons are slings and spears; for, among other singularities in the manners of these people, their bows and arrows are used only for diversion, as we throw quoits: below these stages sit the rowers, who receive from them those that are wounded, and furnish fresh men to ascend in their room. Some of these have a platform of bamboos, or other light wood, through their whole length, and considerably broader, by means of which they will carry a great number of men; but we saw only one fitted in this manner.

The fishing Ivahahs vary in length from about forty feet to the smallest size, which is about ten; all that are of the length of twenty-five feet and upwards, of whatever sort, occasionally carry sail. The travelling Ivahah is always double, and furnished with a small neat house, about five or six feet broad, and six or seven feet long, which is fastened upon the fore-part for the convenience of the principal people, who sit in them by day, and sleep in them at night. The fishing Ivahahs are sometimes joined together, and have a house on board; but this is not common. Those which are shorter than five-and-twenty feet seldom or never carry sail; and though the stern rises about four or five feet, have a flat head and a board that projects forward about four feet.

The Pahie is also of different sizes, from sixty to thirty feet long; but, like the Ivahah, is very narrow. One that I measured was fifty-one feet long, and only one foot and a half wide at the top. In the widest part it was about three feet; and this is the general proportion. It does not, however, widen by a gradual swell; but the sides being straight and parallel for a little way below the gunwale, it swells abruptly, and draws to a ridge at the bottom; so that a transverse section of it has somewhat the appearance of the mark upon cards called a spade, the whole being much wider in proportion to its length. These, like the largest Ivahahs, are used for fighting, but principally for long voyages. The fighting Pahie, which is the largest, is fitted with the stage or platform, which is proportionably larger than those of the Ivahah, as their form enables them to sustain a much greater weight. Those that are used for sailing are generally double; and the middle size are said to be the best sea-boats. They are sometimes out a month together, going from island to island; and sometimes, as we were credibly informed, they are a fortnight or twenty days at sea, and could keep it longer if they had more stowage for provisions, and conveniences to hold fresh water.

When any of these boats carry sail single, they make use of a log of wood, which is fastened to the end of two poles that lie across the vessel, and project from six to ten feet, according to the size of the vessel, beyond its side; somewhat like what is used by the flying proa of the Ladrone Islands, and called, in the account of Lord Anson's Voyage, an outrigger. To this outrigger the shrouds are fastened, and it is essentially necessary in trimming the boat when it blows fresh.

Some of them have one mast, and some two; they are made of a single stick, and when the length of a canoe is thirty feet, that of the mast is somewhat less than five-and-twenty; it is fixed to a frame that is above the canoe, and receives a sail of matting about one-third longer than itself: the sail is pointed at the top, square at the bottom, and curved at the side; somewhat resembling what we call a shoulder-of-mutton sail, and used for boats

belonging to men of war: it is placed in a frame of wood, which surrounds it on every side, and has no contrivance either for reefing or furling; so that, if either should become necessary, it must be cut away, which, however, in these equal climates, can seldom happen. At the top of the mast are fastened ornaments of feathers, which are placed inclining obliquely forwards. The oars or paddles that are used with these boats, have a long handle and a flat blade, not unlike a baker's peel. Of these every person in the boat has one, except those that sit under the awning; and they push her forward with them at a good rate. These boats, however, admit so much water at the seams, that one person at least is continually employed in throwing it out. The only thing in which they excel is landing, and putting off from the shore in a surf; by their great length and high sterns they land dry, when our boats could scarcely land at all; and have the same advantages in putting off by the height of the head.

The Ivahahs are the only boats that are used by the inhabitants of Otaheite; but we saw several Pahies that came from other islands. Of one of these I shall give the exact dimensions from a careful admeasurement, and then particularly describe the manner in which they are built.

To illustrate my description of the manner in which these vessels are built, it will be necessary to refer to the figure; in which a a is the first seam, bb the second, and c c the third.

b

a

The first stage or keel, under a a, is made of a tree hollowed out like a trough; for which the longest trees are chosen that can be got, so that there are never more than three in the whole length: the next stage under bb, is formed of straight plank, about four feet long, fifteen inches broad, and two inches thick: the third stage under c c, is, like the bottom, made of trunks, hollowed into its bilging form; the last is also cut out of trunks, so that the moulding is of one piece with the upright. To form these parts separately, without saw, plane, chisel, or any other iron tool, may well be thought no easy task; but the great difficulty is to join them together. When all the parts are prepared the keel is laid upon blocks, and the planks, being supported by stanchions, are sewed or clamped together with strong thongs of plaiting, which are passed several times through holes that are bored with a gouge or auger of bone, that has been described already; and the nicety with which this is done may be inferred from their being sufficiently water-tight for use without caulking. As the plaiting soon rots in the water, it is renewed at least once a year; in order to which the vessel is taken entirely to pieces. The head and stern are rude with respect to the design; but very neatly finished, and polished to the highest degree.

These Pahies are kept with great care in a kind of house built on purpose for their reception; the houses are formed of poles set upright in the ground, the tops of which are drawn towards each other, and fastened together with their strongest cord, so as to form a kind of Gothic arch, which is completely thatched quite to the ground, being open only at the ends; they are sometimes fifty or sixty paces long.

As connected with the navigation of these people, I shall mention their wonderful sagacity in foretelling the weather, at least the quarter from which the wind shall blow at a future

Η

They say

time; they have several ways of doing this, of which however I know but one. that the Milky-way is always curved laterally, but sometimes in one direction and sometimes in another; and that this curvature is the effect of its being already acted upon by the wind, and its hollow part therefore towards it; so that if the same curvature continues a night, a corresponding wind certainly blows the next day. Of their rules I shall not pretend to judge; but I know that, by whatever means, they can predict the weather, at least the wind, with much greater certainty than we can. In their longer voyages they steer by the sun in the day, and in the night by the stars; all of which they distinguish separately by names, and know in what part of the heavens they will appear in any of the months during which they are visible in their horizon; they also know the time of their annual appearing and disappearing with more precision than will easily be believed by a European astronomer.

CHAPTER XIX. OF THE DIVISION OF TIME IN OTAHEITE—NUMERATION, COMPUTATION OF DISTANCE, LANGUAGE, DISEASES, DISPOSAL OF THE DEAD, RELIGION, WAR, WEAPONS, AND GOVERNMENT-WITH SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS FOR THE USE OF FUTURE

NAVIGATORS.

We were not able to acquire a pefect idea of their method of dividing time; but observed, that in speaking of it, either past or to come, they never used any term but Malama, which signifies moon. Of these moons they count thirteen, and then begin again; which is a demonstration that they have a notion of the solar year: but how they compute their months so that thirteen of them shall be commensurate with the year, we could not discover; for they say that each month has twenty-nine days, including one in which the moon is not visible. They have names for them separately, and have frequently told us the fruits that would be in season, and the weather that would prevail, in each of them; and they have, indeed, a name for them collectively, though they use it only when they speak of the mysteries of their religion. Every day is subdivided into twelve parts, each of two hours, of which six belong to the day, and six to the night. At these divisions they guess pretty nearly by the height of the sun while he is above the horizon; but there are few of them that can guess at them, when he is below it, by the stars.

In numeration they proceed from one to ten, the number of fingers on both hands; and though they have for each number a different name, they generally take hold of their fingers one by one, shifting from one hand to the other till they come to the number they want to express. And in other instances, we observed that, when they were conversing with each other, they joined signs to their words, which were so expressive that a stranger might easily apprehend their meaning.

In counting from ten they repeat the name of that number, and add the word more; ten, and one more, is eleven; ten, and two more, twelve: and so of the rest, as we say one-andtwenty, two-and-twenty. When they come to ten and ten more, they have a new denomination, as we say a score; and by these scores they count till they get ten of them, when they have a denomination for two hundred; and we never could discover that they had any denomination to express a greater number: neither, indeed, do they seem to want any; for ten of these amount to two thousand, a greater number than they can ever apply. In measuring distance they are much more deficient than in computing numbers, having but one term, which answers to fathom; when they speak of distances from place to place, they express it, like the Asiatics, by the time that is required to pass it.

Their language is soft and melodious; it abounds with vowels, and we easily learnt to pronounce it but found it exceedingly difficult to teach them to pronounce a single word of ours; probably not only from its abounding in consonants, but from some peculiarity in its structure; for Spanish and Italian words, if ending in a vowel, they pronounced with great facility. Whether it is copious, we were not sufficiently acquainted with it to know; but it is certainly very imperfect, for it is almost totally without inflexion, both of nouns and verbs. Few of the nouns have more than one case, and few of the verbs more than

one tense; yet we found no great difficulty in making ourselves mutually understood, however strange it may appear in speculation *.

They have, however, certain affixa, which, though but few in number, are very useful to them, and puzzled us extremely. One asks another, Harre hea? Where are you going?" The other answers, Icahinera, “To my wives;" upon which the first, repeating the answer interrogatively, "To your wives?" is answered, Irahinereira; "Yes, I am going to my wives." Here the suffixa era and eira save several words to both parties.

I have inserted a few of their words, from which, perhaps, some idea may be formed of