At Present Our Decks Were So Crowded With Them, That We Were
Obliged To Make A Hog-Stye On Shore.
We concluded, therefore, that
they were now entirely recovered from the blow which they had received
in their late unfortunate war with the lesser peninsula, and of which
they still felt the bad effects at our visit in August 1773." - G.F.
[6] So much curious information is given in the following passage,
that, long as it is, there are few readers, it is believed, who would
willingly dispense with it. "All our former ideas of the power and
affluence of this island were so greatly surpassed by this magnificent
scene, that we were perfectly left in admiration. We counted no less
than one hundred and fifty-nine war-canoes, from fifty to ninety feet
long betwixt stem and stern. All these were double, that is, two
joined together, side by side, by fifteen or eighteen strong
transverse timbers, which sometimes projected a great way beyond both
the hulls, being from twelve to four-and-twenty feet in length, and
about three feet and a half asunder. When they are so long, they make
a platform fifty, sixty, or seventy feet in length. On the outside of
each canoe there are, in that case, two or three longitudinal spars,
and between the two connected canoes, one spar is fixed to the
transverse beams. The heads and sterns were raised several feet out of
the water, particularly the latter, which stood up like long beaks,
sometimes near twenty feet high, and were cut into various shapes; a
white piece of cloth was commonly fixed between the two beaks of each
double canoe, in lieu of an ensign, and the wind swelled it out like a
sail.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 542 of 885
Words from 146447 to 146741
of 239428
