of a palm-tree. The boards will last as long as twenty years. The boats cannot really sink even if full of water. They would if the crew stayed in, but at the first sign of swamping the crew jump out into the water, and cling to the edge of the canoe until the storm abates. Then, one by one, the men carefully get in, each baling out in turn a little water, and then on they go. The natives would not travel in a canoe which did not leak, as they consider it would not go well without water in the bottom to balance it, and one man's business is always to be baling out.
For European travellers and chiefs a bridge of twigs, covered with grass, is spread over the water in the bottom of the canoe, and travelling can be made fairly comfortable by means of bales of bedding and other packages as back-rests. The paddlers face the way they are going, and keep up a dismal chant most of the time,
