Their small canoes for short excursions were flat-bottomed and with upright sides, but the _pahi_, used for long voyages, was bowed and with a sharp keel. The flat-bottomed boats, called _ivaha_, were sometimes united at a distance of about 3 feet by a strong pole of wood laid across them and lashed to the gunwales. On the fore part of these double canoes a stage or platform was raised, rather wider than the boat itself, and upon this stage would stand the fighting men, whose missile weapons were slings and spears. Below these stages sat the men who paddled the canoe, and who furnished reinforcements to replace those who were wounded. Some of the fighting canoes were 40 feet long, and their sterns might be as much as 18 feet above the surface of the water. The _pahi_, or long-distance boat, was sometimes as much as 60 feet long, but very narrow. If intended for warfare it would be fitted with a stage or platform, or for long-distance journeys contain a house. It was steadied with one outrigger projecting 6 to 10 feet, and might have one or even two masts carrying sails that were made of matting. After discovering and exploring the rest of the Society Islands to the north-west of Tahiti, which is an outlying member of the group, Cook directed the course of the _Endeavour_ southwards in search of land; but finding none, except the minute inhabited island of Oheteroa (where the people were lusty and well made and clothed in beautiful bark-cloths painted in stripes of different patterns and colours, and armed with wooden weapons, sometimes pointed with the sharp bone of the sting-ray), he turned his course more to the west, and after sailing from 15 August, 1769, to 6 October, land was sighted on the latter date and became the subject of much eager conversation, it being believed that at last they had found "the unknown Southern land" (Terra Australis Incognita).[75] [75] About the same day the _Endeavour_ was seen approaching New Zealand from the east and was taken by the natives to be a monstrous bird with beautiful white wings. When she came to an anchor and a boat was let down into the sea it was taken to be a fledgling whose wings were not grown. When, however, the boat was seen to contain people, the Maoris decided these must be gods, and probably evil gods.