"Maru," said the chief, when we sat on the mats at late supper after a return from the lagoon, "it is a pity you were not here when the Tahitians had their 'ar'ia and pahi, our large canoes for navigating on the moana faa aro, the landless sea.

"The pahi was eighty feet long, broad in the middle, very carefully and neatly planked over inside, forming a rude bulkhead or inner casing, and had a lofty carved stem rising into one or two posts, terminating in a human form.

Both the 'ar'ia and the pahi were propelled by a huge 'i'e, or mat sail of pandanus-leaves shaped like a leg of a fat hog.

There were four or five Tahitians I knew here who remembered the amuraa maa of the sick man, who had his own schooner, his pahi tira piti; but only Ori retained the deep, though misty, impression made by a meeting of hearts in warmest kinship.