come to excel in what seems a very difficult art. Their small canoes are
beautifully formed, broad and low in the centre, but rising at each end, where
they terminate in high-pointed beaks more or less carved, and ornamented with a
plume of feathers. They are not hollowed out of a tree, but are regularly built of
planks running from ego to end, and so accurately fitted that it is often difficult
to find a place where a knife-blade can be inserted between the joints. The larger
ones are from 20 to 30 tons burthen, and are finished ready for sea without a nail
or particle of iron being used, and with no other tools than axe, adze, and auger.
These vessels are handsome to look at, good sailers, and admirable sea-boats,
and will make long voyages with perfect safety, traversing the whole
Archipelago from New Guinea to Singapore in seas which, as every one who has
sailed much in them can testify, are not so smooth and tempest-free as word-
painting travellers love to represent them.
The forests of Ke produce magnificent timber, tall, straight, and durable, of
various qualities, some of which are said to be superior to the best Indian teak.
To make each pair of planks used in the construction of the larger boats an entire
tree is consumed. It is felled, often miles away from the shore, cut across to the
proper length, and then hewn longitudinally into two equal portions. Each of
these forms a plank by cutting down with the axe to a uniform thickness of three
or four inches, leaving at first a solid block at each end to prevent splitting.
Along the centre of each plank a series of projecting pieces are left, standing up
three or four inches, about the same width, and a foot long; these are of great
importance in the construction of the vessel. When a sufficient number of planks
have been made, they are laboriously dragged through the forest by three or four
men each to the beach, where the boat is to be built. A foundation piece, broad in
the middle and rising considerably at each end, is first laid on blocks and
properly shored up. The edges of this are worked true and smooth with the adze,
and a plank, properly curved and tapering at each end, is held firmly up against
it, while a line is struck along it which allows it to be cut so as to fit exactly. A
series of auger holes, about as large as one's finger, are then bored along the
opposite edges, and pins of very hard wood are fitted to these, so that the two
planks are held firmly, and can be driven into the closest contact; and difficult as
this seems to do without any other aid than rude practical skill in forming each
edge to the true corresponding curves, and in poring the holes so as exactly to
match both in position and direction, yet so well is it done that the best European
shipwright cannot produce sounder or closer-fitting joints. The boat is built up in
this way by fitting plank to plank till the proper height and width are obtained.
We have now a skin held together entirely by the hardwood pins connecting the