One day a newcomer proposed that two or three of us should pay him a
sly, nocturnal visit aboard his ship; engaging to send us away well
freighted with provisions. This was not a bad idea; nor were we at
all backward in acting upon it. Right after night every vessel in
the harbour was visited in rotation, the foragers borrowing Captain
Bob's canoe for the purpose. As we all took turns at this--two by two
--in due course it came to Long Ghost and myself, for the sailors
invariably linked us together. In such an enterprise, I somewhat
distrusted the doctor, for he was no sailor, and very tall; and a
canoe is the most ticklish of navigable things. However, it could
not be helped; and so we went.

But a word about the canoes before we go any further. Among the
Society Islands, the art of building them, like all native
accomplishments, has greatly deteriorated; and they are now the most
inelegant, as well as the most insecure of any in the South Seas. In
Cook's time, according to his account, there was at Tahiti a royal
fleet of seventeen hundred and twenty large war canoes, handsomely
carved, and otherwise adorned. At present, those used are quite
small; nothing more than logs hollowed out, sharpened at one end, and
then launched into the water.

To obviate a certain rolling propensity, the Tahitians, like all
Polynesians, attach to them what sailors call an "outrigger." It
consists of a pole floating alongside, parrallel to the canoe, and
connected with it by a couple of cross sticks, a yard or more in
length. Thus equipped, the canoe cannot be overturned, unless you
overcome the buoyancy of the pole, or lift it entirely out of the
water.