CHAPTER XII--THE HIGH SEAT OF ABUNDANCE
On the arrival of strangers, every man endeavoured to obtain one as
a friend and carry him off to his own habitation, where he is
treated with the greatest kindness by the inhabitants of the
district; they place him on a high seat and feed him with abundance
of the finest food.--Polynesian Researches.
The Snark was lying at anchor at Raiatea, just off the village of
Uturoa. She had arrived the night before, after dark, and we were
preparing to pay our first visit ashore. Early in the morning I had
noticed a tiny outrigger canoe, with an impossible spritsail,
skimming the surface of the lagoon. The canoe itself was coffin-
shaped, a mere dugout, fourteen feet long, a scant twelve inches
wide, and maybe twenty-four inches deep. It had no lines, except in
so far that it was sharp at both ends. Its sides were
perpendicular. Shorn of the outrigger, it would have capsized of
itself inside a tenth of a second. It was the outrigger that kept
it right side up.
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