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[Page 458]

Manners & Customs of the South Sea Islands

18 inches high & about 4 feet in lengh. Such a number of peices must necessarily be framd & fitted together before they are sewd & this they do very dexterously supporting the Keel first by ropes made fast to the top of the house under which they work & then each plank by a stantion: so that the canoe is compleatly put together before any one part of her is fastned to that which is next to it & in this manner supported till the sewing is compleated This however soon rotts in the salt water it must be renewd once a year at least in doing which the canoe is intirely taken to peices & every plank examind by which means they are always in good repair The best of them are however very leaky for as they use no calking the water must run in at every hole through which the sewing is past this however is no great inconvenience to them who live in a climate where the water is always warm, & go barefoot.

For the convenience of keeping these Paheis dry we saw in the Islands where they are usd a peculiar sort of houses which were built on purpose for their reception & put to no use but
 

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