Manchurian Books

All they require is a knife, and a cocoa shell for water.
Before their huts, or on the shore, lie their piroques, formed of
the trunks of trees hollowed out, and so narrow, small, and shallow,
that they would constantly be overturning, if there were not on one
side five or six sticks, each about a foot long, fastened by a
cross-bar to preserve the equilibrium. In spite of this, however,
one of these boats is very easily upset, unless a person steps in
very cautiously. When, on one occasion, I proceeded in a piroque to
the ship, the good-hearted captain was horror-struck, and, in his
concern for my safety, even reprimanded me severely, and besought me
not to repeat the experiment a second time.
The costume of the Indians has been, since the first settlement of
the missionaries (about fifty years ago), tolerably becoming,
especially in the neighbourhood of Papeiti. Both men and women wear
round their loins a kind of apron, made of coloured stuff, and
called a pareo; the women let it fall as low down as their ancles;
the men not farther than the calf of the leg.


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