From this digression (if it can be called so) I return to the observations made during our stay at Atooi; and some account must now be given of their canoes. These, in general, are about twenty-four feet long, and have the bottom, for the most part, formed of a single piece or log of wood, hollowed out to the thickness of an inch, or an inch and a half, and brought to a point at each end. The sides consist of three boards, each about an inch thick, and neatly fitted and lashed to the bottom part. The extremities, both at head and stern, are a little raised, and both are made sharp, somewhat like a wedge; but they flatten more abruptly; so that the two sideboards join each other side by side, for more than a foot. As they are not more than fifteen or eighteen inches broad, those that go single (for they sometimes join them as at the other islands) have outriggers, which are shaped and fitted with more judgment than any I had before seen. They are rowed by paddles, such as we had generally met with; and some of them have a light triangular sail, like those of the Friendly Islands, extending to a mast and boom. The ropes used for their boats, and the smaller cords for their fishing-tackle, are strong and well made. What we saw of their agriculture, furnished sufficient proofs that they are not novices in that art. The vale ground has already been mentioned as one continued plantation of _taro_, and a few other things, which have all the appearance of being well attended to. The potatoe fields, and spots of sugar-cane, or plantains on the higher grounds, are planted with the same regularity; and always in some determinate figure, generally as a square or oblong; but neither these, nor the others, are enclosed with any kind of fence, unless we reckon the ditches in the low grounds such, which, it is more probable, are intended to convey water to the _taro_. The great quantity and goodness of these articles may also, perhaps, be as much attributed to skilful culture as to natural fertility of soil, which seems better adapted to them than to bread-fruit and cocoa-nut trees; the few which we saw of these latter not being in a thriving state, which will sufficiently account for the preference given to the culture of the other articles, though more labour be required to produce them. But, notwithstanding this skill in agriculture, the general appearance of the island shewed, that it was capable of much more extensive improvement, and of maintaining, at least, three times the number of the inhabitants that are at present upon it; for the far greater part of it, that now lies quite waste, seemed to be as good a soil as those parts of it that are in cultivation. We must therefore conclude, that these people, from some cause, which we were not long enough amongst them to be able to trace, do not increase in that proportion, which would make it necessary to avail themselves of the extent of their island, toward raising a greater quantity of its