Very different indeed from the light canoes just described are the canoes of the South Sea islanders. Some are large, and some are small; some long, some short; a few elegant, a few clumsy; and one or two peculiarly remarkable. Most of them are narrow, and liable to upset; in order to prevent which catastrophe the natives have ingeniously, though clumsily, contrived a sort of "_outrigger_," or plank, which they attach to the side of the canoe to keep it upright. They also fasten two canoes together to steady them. One of these _double canoes_ is thus described by Cheever in his "Island World of the Pacific:"--"A double canoe is composed of two single ones of the same size placed parallel to each other, three or four feet apart, and secured in their places by four or five pieces of wood, curved just in the shape of a bit-stock. These are lashed to both canoes with the strongest cinet, made of cocoa-nut fibre, so as to make the two almost as much one as same of the double ferry-boats that ply between Brooklyn and New York. A flattened arch is thus made by the bow-like cross-pieces over the space between the canoes, upon which a board or a couple of stout poles laid lengthwise constitute an elevated platform for passengers and freight, while those who paddle and steer sit in the bodies of the canoes at the sides. A slender mast, which may be unstepped in a minute, rises from about the centre of this platform, to give support to a very simple sail, now universally made of white cotton cloth, but formerly of mats." The double canoes belonging to the chiefs of the South Sea islanders are the largest,--some of them being nearly seventy feet long, yet they are each only about two feet wide and three or four feet deep. The sterns are remarkably high--fifteen or eighteen feet above the water. The war canoes are also large and compactly built; the stern being low and covered, so as to afford shelter from stones and darts. A rude imitation of a head or some grotesque figure is usually carved on the stern; while the stem is elevated, curved like the neck of a swan, and terminates frequently in the carved figure of a bird's head. These canoes are capable of holding fifty warriors. Captain Cook describes some as being one hundred and eight feet long. All of them, whether single or double, mercantile or war canoes, are propelled by paddles, the men sitting with their faces in the direction in which they are going.