to manage whenever they were caught in anything like a rough sea; they could not meet the seas end on, but lay in the trough of the waves, and were so well handled that disasters were few. In rough weather they were covered with flax mats over a portion of their length to prevent the seas breaking inboard. The long pine hull was of great strength, but to render it more seaworthy topsides were lashed along the sides of the hull from end to end of the vessel with braids of flax fibres,[9] and the seams and holes were caulked with a species of down. As a precaution against leakage and to strengthen the joint, a long, thin batten was lashed over the outside of the joint. The decorations of the Maori canoes are wonderful. The spiral pattern often seen in their carvings is taken from the unfolding of the frond of a fern, and has been supposed to symbolise the unfolding of life or the attainment of a planned enterprise. The greatest care and the most artistic efforts were lavished upon the carvings of the prow and stern boards. These boards were very large and always removable. The log from which the stern-board was fashioned was generally about 15 inches in diameter and 6 to 15 feet in length, and in its complete state was covered with conventional and elaborate patterns. The figurehead log was about 6 feet in length and 4 feet wide, and 2 to 4 feet in thickness. Both were of hardwood and coloured red with kokowai or ochre. If the figureheads represented the dead chiefs who had joined the immortals in the Maori heaven, they must have lost in the other world what little beauty was left to them in this world after being tattooed. Not a few of the figures are extraordinarily grotesque, and the weird effect of the red ochre is heightened by the introduction of bright shiny eyes made of the inner shell of the haliotis. Many also show the tattoo marks which were supposed to add to Maori beauty, and most bore bunches of feathers of the kaka and albatross, and on gala days were further adorned with an elaborate and gaudy feather wig. The thin batten, already alluded to, covering the join of the topside and hull, was always stained black. Gannet feathers were inserted to cover the lashings and contrasted vividly with the black batten and the reddened canoe. The sides of many canoes also were painted in wavy lines of red, white and black, as though in imitation of the wave motion. Streamers of pigeon tail feathers hung from the top of the stern-board to the water; even the sail point on the boom bore its tuft and streamers of feathers. [Illustration: A LAKATOI NEARLY COMPLETED.] [Illustration: A LAKATOI UNDER SAIL. _From Photographs supplied by the Hon. J. E. Jenkins._]