modest reserve, especially toward strangers. In
regard to articles of mere ornament, I was told that they were not the
same in all the island. I did not see them, either, clothed in their war
dresses, or habits of ceremony. But I had an opportunity to see them
paint or print their _tapa_, or bark cloth, an occupation in which they
employ a great deal of care and patience. The pigments they use are
derived from vegetable juices, prepared with the oil of the cocoa-nut.
Their pencils are little reeds or canes of bamboo, at the extremity of
which they carve out divers sorts of flowers. First they tinge the cloth
they mean to print, yellow, green, or some other color which forms the
ground: then they draw upon it perfectly straight lines, without any
other guide but the eye; lastly they dip the ends of the bamboo sticks
in paint of a different tint from the ground, and apply them between the
dark or bright bars thus formed. This cloth resembles a good deal our
calicoes and printed cottons; the oils with which it is impregnated
renders it impervious to water. It is said that the natives of _Atowy_
excel all the other islanders in the art of painting the tapa.

The Sandwich-islanders live in villages of one or two hundred houses
arranged without symmetry, or rather grouped together in complete
defiance of it. These houses are constructed (as I have before said) of
posts driven in the ground, covered with long dry grass, and walled with
matting; the thatched roof gives them a sort of resemblance to our
Canadian barns or granges. The length of each house varies according to
the number of the family which occupies it: they are not smoky like the
wigwams of our Indians, the fireplace being always outside in the open
air, where all the cooking is performed. Hence their dwellings are very
clean and neat inside.

Their pirogues or canoes are extremely light and neat: those which are
single have an outrigger, consisting of two curved pieces of timber
lashed across the bows, and touching the water at the distance of five
or six feet from the side; another piece, turned up at each extremity,
is tied to the end and drags in the water, on which it acts like a
skating iron on the ice, and by its weight keeps the canoe in
equilibrium: without that contrivance they would infallibly upset. Their
paddles are long, with a very broad blade. All these canoes carry a
lateen, or sprit-sail, which is made of a mat of grass or leaves,
extremely wel