Their canoes, in which they spend more than half their lives, are wonderfully adapted to their requirements. The large ones, which are a very great trouble to build, and which are kept in sheds constructed specially for them, are twenty-six feet long, two and a half wide, and four deep. They are furnished with gimbals, the cross-pieces being connected by a rafter. On the other side there is a small platform, four feet square, and furnished with a roof, under which they are accustomed to keep their provisions. These pirogues have a triangular sail, which is made of matting woven from bandanus leaves, and is attached to two yards. In tacking about they drop the sail, and turn the mast towards the other end of the canoe, to which, at the same time, they have passed the fastening of the sail, so that the pirogue moves forward by its other extremity. Lutke next sighted the Namuluk group, the inhabitants of which do not differ at all from the people of Lugunor, and he proved the identity of Hogolu Island--already described by Duperrey--with Quirosa. He then visited the Namnuito group, the first stratum of a number of islands, or of one large island which will some day exist in this part of the world. Lutke, who was in want of biscuits and other articles, which he hoped to obtain at Guam, or from vessels at anchor in that port, now set sail for the Marianne Islands, where he counted upon being able to repeat some new experiments with the pendulum, in which Freycinet had found an important anomaly of gravitation.[6] [Footnote 6: "From numerous experiments," says Freycinet, "with the pendulum, collected at our observatory at Agagna, in lat. 13 degrees 27 minutes 511 seconds 5 N. ... at the level of the sea, and with the thermometer at +20 degrees centig., we were shown that the pendulum which, in the same circumstances, would make at Paris 86,400 oscillations in 24 mean solar hours would here make 86,295 ^osc .013 in the same time."--_Trans._] Great, however, was his surprise when he arrived to find not a sign of life at Guam. No flags waved above the two ports, the silence of death reigned everywhere, and but for the presence of a schooner at anchor in the inner harbour, it might have been a desert island. There was hardly anybody about on shore, and the few people there were were half savage, from whom it was all but impossible to obtain the slightest information. Fortunately, an English deserter came and offered his services to Lutke, who sent him to the governor with a letter, which elicited a satisfactory reply. The governor was the same Medinella whose hospitality had been lauded by Kotzebue and Freycinet. There was, therefore, no difficulty in obtaining permission to set up an observatory, and to take to it the necessary provisions. The stay at Guam was, however, saddened by an accident to Lutke, who wounded himself severely in the thumb with his own gun when hunting.