Their Forests Supply Abundance Of Fine Timber, Though, Probably Not More So Than Many Other Islands, And From Some Unknown Causes These Remote Savages Have 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.

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