The thin end of the log cleft the water better than the other. He chips the end to a point. There are tribes that stop at this point. The catamarans of Eastern New Guinea are merely three shaped logs lashed together, and depend for their buoyancy upon the displacement of the solid wood. A chance experiment shows that a hollow log is more buoyant, besides having the advantage of providing a dry resting-place for the feet. The discoverer of this phenomenon widens the natural hollow with fire, lashes his cross-ties to a smaller log, also sharpened at the ends, and he has made a Fijian canoe. The next steps are easy. By trying to propel it up-stream with a bamboo too short to reach the bottom he discards the pole for a slab of bark, and he has invented the paddle. To use the wind in the estuary to the best advantage he props a slab of bark on a stick and steadies it with a stay of vine. On his next voyage he takes a mat with him, staying his mast to the outrigger, the bow and the stern. Going about on the other tack the pressure of the wind bearing on the outrigger sinks it and capsizes the canoe, teaching him by painful experience that he must turn his sail inside out, and keep the outrigger always to windward. He has now devised the most complicated, the swiftest, and in many respects the most beautiful sailing machine in existence--the sailing canoe. The raising of the sides, and the decking of the bow and stern are expedients that need no deductive process. [Illustration: The _Thamakau_.] [Pageheader: THE SAILING CANOE] Four kinds of canoe are used by the Fijians: (1) The _Takia_--an undecked dug-out furnished with an outrigger, which is used on the rivers and on the calm water inside the reef, and is propelled with poles or with paddles. (2) The _Thamakau_--a seagoing canoe with sides raised by planking to carry a deck; with solid outrigger and mast and sails. (3) The _Tambilai_--a dug-out with ends cut square, several feet at each end being left solid.