In the canoe building, as, indeed, in all labours, a great part of the work falls to the women. They do all the sewing and tying, and often are compelled to take part in the hammering and botching. When the little craft is afloat, the squaws assist in the paddling; and very often are more skilful in this respect than the men. Usually, however, when a family is moving about, the man and wife paddle side by side. In the primitive mode of sailing, one sits at the stern and one at the bow, both paddling with short broad paddles. The one in the bow looks out for shallow rocks and rapids, which might prove dangerous; he then signals to the one in the stern, to whose care the propelling of the boat is principally entrusted, who directs the boat accordingly. The lightness of the canoe, and the extraordinary skill of the Indians in guiding it, enables it to skim over the surface of the water with marvellous rapidity. The most surprising part of the business is the great load these canoes can carry. Mr. Kohl makes mention of one he saw, which contained a family of twenty persons, with their goods and chattels! They had come some hundred and fifty miles in their little boat,--over cataracts and rapids; besides they had a quantity of deer and bear skins with them, and several live dogs. The whole weight must have exceeded a ton! Throughout the whole of Polynesia, as in savage North America, the native, wherever you find him, regards war as the first business of his life, as the only means of earning fame and riches. Without doubt this yearning for perpetual strife has now somewhat subsided, but within the memory of the still young, the said yearning was at its highest. Samoa furnishes an apt instance; and even within the last few years, when Mr. Turner was there located as missionary, he found that the murder of a chief, a disputed title, or a desire on the part of one, two, or more of the districts to be considered stronger and of more importance than the rest, were frequent causes of war. Hostilities were often prevented by such acts as giving up the culprit, paying a heavy fine, or bowing down in abject submission, not with ropes round their necks, but carrying firewood and small stones used in baking a pig, or perhaps a few bamboos. The firewood, stones, and leaves were equivalent to their saying, “Here we are your pigs to be cooked if you please; and here are the materials with which to do it.” Taking bamboos in the hand was as if they said, “We have come, and here are the knives to cut us up.” A piece of split bamboo was of old the usual knife in Samoa.