"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 was 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 indifferent to being overturned as are
the savages. On one occasion Mr Ellis, accompanied by three ladies,
Mrs Orsmond, Mrs Barff, and his wife, with her two children and one or
two natives, were crossing a harbour in the island of Huahine. A female
servant was sitting in the forepart of the canoe with Mr Ellis's little
girl in her arms. His infant boy was at its mother's breast; and a
native, with a long light pole, was paddling or pushing the canoe along,
when a small buhoe, with a native youth sitting in it, darted out from
behind a bush that hung over the water, and before they could turn or
the youth could stop his canoe, it ran across the outrigger. This in an
instant went down, the canoe was turned bottom upwards, and the whole
party precipitated into the sea.
The sun had set soon after they started from the opposite side, and the
twilight being very short, the shades of evening had already thickened
round them, which prevented the natives on shore from seeing their
situation. The native woman, being quite at home in the water, held the
little girl up with one hand, and swam with the other towards the shore,
aiding at the same time Mrs Orsmond, who had caught hold of her long
hair, which floated on the water behind her. Mrs Barff, on rising to
the surface, caught hold of the outrigger of the canoe that had
occasioned the disaster, and calling out loudly for help, informed the
people on shore of their danger, and speedily brought them to their
assistance. Mrs Orsmond's husband, happening to be at hand at the
time, rushed down to the beach and plunged at once into the water. His
wife, on seeing him, quitted her, hold of the native woman, and grasping
her husband, would certainly have drowned both him and herself had not
the natives sprung in and rescued them.
Mahinevahine, the queen of the island, leaped into the sea and rescued
Mrs Barff; Mr Ellis caught hold of the canoe, and supported his wife
and their infant until assistance came. Thus they were all saved.
The South Sea islanders, of whose canoes we have been writing, are--some
of them at least--the fiercest savages on the face of the earth. They
wear little or no clothing, and practise cannibalism--that is,
_man-eating_--from choice. They actually prefer human flesh to any
other. Of this we are informed on most unquestionable authority.
Doubtless the canoes which we have described are much the same now as
they were a thousand years ago; so that, by visiting those parts of the
earth where the natives are still savage, we may, as it were, leap
backward into ancient times, and behold with our own eyes the state of
marine architecture as it existed when our own forefathers were savages,
and paddled about the Thames and the Clyde on logs, and rafts, and
wicker-work canoes.