CHAPTER VI
Outrigger canoes, their appearance and construction—The famous Lakatois—How the natives catch their fish; and a few words about fish that climb trees—A trip down the coast, and an unpleasant experience.
If you can imagine a cloudless sky of a deep blue colour, a sea so smooth that not a ripple is visible, and so clear that you can look down into it and see the dark rocks and the sandy bottom and strangely shaped fish swimming idly about amongst bushes of seaweed, which wave and curl with the ebb of the tide; and floating masses of jelly which occasionally double themselves into balls and then become floating masses again. If you can picture all this you will have an idea how clear the waters of the South Seas are when the sky is cloudless. The hot sun is overhead, and the still air is full of a sweet fragrance. Just above you you will see a frigate bird sailing lazily about, and by the sea shore just a faint ripple and a line of white show {58} you quaint and picturesque canoes—not the ordinary mere dug-out things which are so narrow in body that there is only room for a medium-sized man to sit, but long curiously shaped ones with poles stretching across and extended far out over the side; they are slightly arched, and at the end there is a log which rests in the water and lies parallel to the boat.
These outriggers are queer constructions, but no sea can upset a boat possessing them, and with the light shining full on the bright skins of their half-naked occupants, they look still more eccentric. To see a dozen of these queer craft being swiftly paddled through the water by men with bushy heads and fine massive bodies, and women more nude than dressed, but with their hair cropped close to their skulls, is not a sight to be seen everywhere, and well repays all the thousand little disadvantages that journeying to these parts entails.