Cooking Utensils Are Not Wanted, As The Cookery Of The Indians Does Not Include Soups Or Sauces, Their Provisions Being Simply Roasted Between Hot Stones. All They Require Is A Knife, And A Cocoa Shell For Water.

Before their huts, or on the shore, lie their piroques, formed of the trunks of trees hollowed out, and

So narrow, small, and shallow, that they would constantly be overturning, if there were not on one side five or six sticks, each about a foot long, fastened by a cross-bar to preserve the equilibrium. In spite of this, however, one of these boats is very easily upset, unless a person steps in very cautiously. When, on one occasion, I proceeded in a piroque to the ship, the good-hearted captain was horror-struck, and, in his concern for my safety, even reprimanded me severely, and besought me not to repeat the experiment a second time.

The costume of the Indians has been, since the first settlement of the missionaries (about fifty years ago), tolerably becoming, especially in the neighbourhood of Papeiti. Both men and women wear round their loins a kind of apron, made of coloured stuff, and called a pareo; the women let it fall as low down as their ancles; the men not farther than the calf of the leg. The latter have a short coloured shirt underneath it, and again beneath that, large flowing trousers. The women wear a long full blouse. Both sexes wear flowers in their ears, which have such large holes bored in them that the stalk can very easily be drawn through.

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