the birds, as much as that of the fishes, when the fishermen perceive the birds, they proceed to the place, and usually find the fish. The undulation of the waves occasions the canoe to rise and sink as they proceed, and this produces a corresponding motion in the hook suspended from the mast; and so complete is the deception, that if the fish once perceives the pearl-shell hook, it seldom fails to dart after it; and if it misses the first time, is almost sure to be caught the second. As soon as the fish is fast, the men in the canoe, by drawing the cord, hoist up the tira, and drag in the fish, suspended as it were from a kind of crane. When the fish is removed, the crane is lowered; and as it projects over the stem of the canoe, the rowers hasten after the shoal with all possible celerity.

During the rainy season, or on the occurrence of a flood, when the rivers are swollen and rapid, discolouring the water of the sea to a great extent, a number of large fish approach the mouths of the rivers, for the purpose of preying on the eels and other fresh-water fish carried down in the torrent; at such seasons the fishermen are on the alert, and usually return from the sea richly laden

These, and a variety of other methods of fishing, are pursued by day-light; but many fish are taken by night sometimes the fishery is carried on by moon-light, occasionally in the dark, but fishing by torch-light is the most picturesque. The torches are bunches of dried reeds firmly tied together. Sometimes they pursue their nocturnal sport on the reef, and hunt the totara, or hedge-hog fish. Large parties often go out to the reef; and it is a beautiful sight to behold a long line of rocks illuminated by the flaring torches. These the fishermen hold in one hand, and stand with the poised

spear in the other, ready to strike as soon as the fish appears.

In the rivers they also fish by torch-light, especially for eels; and though the circumstances are varied, the impression is not inferior. Few scenes present a more striking and singular effect than a band of natives walking along the shallow parts of the rocky sides of a river, elevating a torch with one hand, and a spear in the other; while the glare of their torches is thrown upon the overhanging boughs, and reflected from the agitated surface of the stream. Their own bronze-coloured and lightly clothed forms, partially illuminated, standing like figures in relief; while the whole scene appears in bright contrast with the dark and almost midnight gloom that envelops every other object.

Since their intercourse with Europeans, Englishmade steel hooks have been introduced. They like their sharpness at the point, but usually complain of them as too open or wide. For some kinds of fish they are preferred, but for most they find the mother-of-pearl hooks answer best. Every fisherman, I believe, would rather have a wrought-iron nail three or four inches long, or a piece of iron-wire of the size, and make a hook according to his own mind, than have the best European-made hook that could be given to him. Most of the nails which they formerly procured from the shipping were used for this purpose, and highly prized.

Their ideas of the nature of these valuable

articles were very singular. Perceiving, in their shape and colour, a resemblance to the young shoots or scions that grow from the roots of the bread-fruit trees, they imagined that they were a hard kind of plant, and procured in the same way.

INSTANCE OF SIMPLE HONESTY.

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Anxious to secure a more abundant supply, they divided the first parcel of nails ever received, carried part to the temple, and deposited them on the altar; the rest they actually planted in their gardens, and awaited their growth with the highest anticipation. In the manufacture of hooks from nails, they manifested great patience and persevering labour: they had no files, but sharpened the points, and rounded the angles, by rubbing the nail on a stone; they also used a stone in bending it to the required shape. The use of files, however, has greatly facilitated their manufacture of fishhooks.

In connexion with this subject, a striking instance of native simplicity and honesty occurred about the time of our arrival. Two Christian chiefs, Tati and Ahuriro, were walking together by the water-side, when they came to a place where a fisherman had been employed in making or sharpening hooks, and had left a large file, (a valuable article in Tahiti,) lying on the ground. The chiefs picked it up; and, as they were proceeding, one said to the other, "This is not ours. Is not our taking it a species of theft?"" Perhaps it is," replied the other. 66 Yet, as the true owner is not here, I do not know who has a greater right to it than ourselves." "It is not ours," said the former, "and we had better give it away." After further conversation, they agreed to give it to the first person they met, which they did; telling him they had found it, and requested that if he heard who had lost such a one, he would restore it.

The isolated situation of the islanders, and their dependence upon the sea for much of their subsistence, necessarily impart a maritime character to their habits, and render the building, fitting, and

managing of the vessels one of the most general and important of their avocations. It also procures no small respect and endowment for the Tahua tarai vaa, builder of canoes. Vaa waa, or vaka, is the name of a canoe, in most of the islands of the Pacific; though by foreigners they are uniformly called canoes, a name first given to this sort of boat by the natives of the Caribbean Islands,* and adopted by Europeans ever since, to designate the rude boats used by the uncivilized natives in every part of the world.

The canoes of the Society Islanders are various, both in size and shape, and are double or single. Those belonging to the principal chiefs, and the public district canoes, were fifty, sixty, or nearly seventy feet long, and each about two feet wide, and three or four feet deep; the sterns remarkably high, sometimes fifteen or eighteen feet above the water, and frequently ornamented with rudely carved hollow cylinders, square pieces, or grotesque figures, called tiis. The rank or dignity of a chief was supposed, in some degree, to be indicated by the size of his canoe, the carving and ornaments with which it was embellished, and the number of its rowers.

Next in size to these was the pahi, or war canoe. I never saw but one of these: the stern was low, and covered, so as to afford a shelter from the stones and darts of the assailants; the bottom was round, the upper part of the sides narrower,

* After his first interview with the natives of the newly discovered islands, in the Caribbean sea, we are informed by Robertson, that Columbus returned to his ship, accompanied by many of the islanders in their boats, which they called canoes; and though rudely formed out of the trunk of a single tree, they rowed them with surprising dexterity.

and perpendicular; a rude imitation of the human head, or some other grotesque figure, was carved on the stern of each canoe. The stem, often elevated and curved like the neck of a swan, termi-* nated in the carved figure of a bird's head, and the whole was more solid and compact than the other vessels. In some of their canoes, and in the pahi among the rest, a rude sort of grating, made with the light but tough wood of the bread-fruit tree, covered the hull of the vessels, the intervening space between them, and projected a foot or eigh

teen inches over the outer edges. On this the rowers usually sat; and here the mariners, who attended to the sails, took their stations, and found it much more convenient and secure than standing on the narrow edges of the canoes, or the curved and circular beams that held them together. There was also a kind of platform in the front, or generally near the centre, on which the fighting men were stationed: these canoes were sometimes sixty feet long, between three and four