On this day ...
21 July 1769
Endeavour Voyage Maps
James Cook's Journal Ms 1, National Library of Australia
Transcript of Cook's Journal
Sydney Parkinson's Journal
The authorised published account of Cook's Voyage by John Hawkesworth
1769
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21. Dr Solander and myself walkd out this morn and saw many large Boathouses like that describd at Huahine page 303 and 401. On these the inhabitants were at work making and repairing the large Canoes calld by them Pahee, at which business they workd with incredible cleverness tho their tools certainly were as bad as possible. I will first give the dimensions and description of one of their boats and then their method of building. Its extreme lenght from stem to stern not reckoning the bending up of both those parts 51 feet; breadth in the clear at the top forward 14 inches, midships 18, aft 15; in the bilge forward 32 inches, midships 35, aft 33; depth midships 3 ft 4; hight from the ground she stood on 3ft 6; her head raisd without the figure 4ft 4 from the ground, the figure 11 inches; her stern 8 ft 9, the figure 2 feet. Alongside of her was lashd another like her in all parts but less in proportion being only 33 feet in her extreme lengh. The form of these Canoes is better to be expressd by a drawing than by any description.
This annexd may serve to give some Idea of a section: aa is the first seam, bb the second, cc the third. The first stage or keel under aa is made of trees hollowd out like a trough for which purpose they chuse the longest trees they can get, so that 2 or three make the bottom of their largest boats (some of which are much larger than that describd here as I make a rule to describe every thing of this kind from the common size); the next stage under bb is formd of streght plank about 4 feet long and 15 inches broad and 2 inches thick; the next stage under cc is made like the bottom of trunks of trees hollowd into its bilging form; the last or that above cc is formd also out of trunks of trees so that the moulding is of one peice with the plank. This work dificult as it would be to an Europaean with his Iron tools they perform without Iron and with amazing dexterity; they hollow with their stone axes as fast at least as our Carpenters could do and dubb tho slowly with prodigious nicety; I have seen them take off a skin of an angular plank without missing a stroke, the
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© Derived from State Library of NSW 1998 Transcription of Banks's Endeavour Journal page (vol.1) 309, 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/banks/17690721.html