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These, like the largest Ivahahs, are used for fighting; but principally for long voyages. The fighting Pahie, which is the largest, is fitted with the stage or platform, which is proportionably larger than those of the Ivahah, as their form enables them to sustain a much greater weight. Those that are used for sailing are generally double; and the middle size are said to be the best sea-boats.
Those which are shorter than five-and-twenty feet, seldom or never carry sail; and, though the stern rises about four or five feet, have a flat head, and a board that projects forward about four feet. The Pahie is also of different sizes, from sixty to thirty feet long; but, like the Ivahah, is very narrow. One that I measured was fifty-one feet long, and only one foot and a half wide at the top.
The travelling Ivahah is always double, and furnished with a small neat house about five or six feet broad, and six or seven feet long, which is fastened upon the fore-part for the convenience of the principal people, who sit in them by day, and sleep in them at night. The fishing Ivahahs are sometimes joined together, and have a house on board; but this is not common.
There is the fighting Ivahah; the fishing Ivahah, and the travelling Ivahah; for some of these go from one island to another. The fighting Ivahah is by far the longest, and the head and stern are considerably raised above the body, in a semicircular form; particularly the stern, which is sometimes seventeen or eighteen feet high, though the boat itself is scarcely three.
The canoes, or boats, which are used by the inhabitants of this and the neighbouring islands, may be divided into two general classes; one of which they call Ivahahs, the other Pahies. The Ivahah is used for short excursions to sea, and is wall-sided and flat-bottomed; the Pahie for longer voyages, and is bow-sided and sharp-bottomed.
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