Typee

Chapter Twenty-eight

THERE was no instance in which the social and kindly dispositions

of the Typees were more forcibly evinced than in the manner the

conducted their great fishing parties. Four times during my stay

in the valley the young men assembled near the full of the moon,

and went together on these excursions. As they were generally

absent about forty-eight hours, I was led to believe that they

went out towards the open sea, some distance from the bay. The

Polynesians seldom use a hook and line, almost always employing

large well-made nets, most ingeniously fabricated from the

twisted fibres of a certain bark. I examined several of them

which had been spread to dry upon the beach at Nukuheva. They

resemble very much our own seines, and I should think they were

nearly as durable.

All t