Page:Williams and Calvert, Fiji and the Fijians, New York, 1860.djvu/85

ETDUSTKIAL PKODUCE, ETC. 61 growing out at that point, the shoot being cut oiF nearly close. Various modifications of this tool were all the Fijian had with which to hew out his posts and planks, to cut down trees, or make the nicest joints, or, together with shells, to execute most marvellous carving. Firesticks and the long spines of echini supplied his boring apparatus. With Bats' teeth set in hard wood, he executed his more minute carving or engraving ; and for a rasp or file he still uses the mushroom coral, or the shagreen-like skin of the ray-fish, and pumice-stone for general finishing pm^poses. With no other aids than these, the workman of Fiji was able to accomplish feats of joinery and caring — the boast of mechanics provided with all the steel tools and other appliances which art can furnish. Now, however, as it has already been intimated, the good blades and chisels of Sheffield, and axes from America, and plane- irons, which the natives still prefer to any other tool, since they can fix and use them after the fashion of the old stone-adze, are, with simi- lar articles, fast superseding the primitive implements of Fiji. The form of the houses in Fiji is so varied, that a description of a building in one of the windward islands would give a very imperfect idea of those to leeward, those of the former being much the better. In one district, a village looks like an assemblage of square wicker bas- kets ; in another, like so many rustic arbours ; a third seems a col- lection of oblong hayricks with holes in the sides, while in a fourth these ricks are conical. By one tribe, just enough frame-work is built to receive the covering for the walls and roofs, the inside of the house being an open space. Another tribe introduces long centre posts, posts half as long to receive the wall-plates, and others still shorter, as quarterings to strengthen the walls : to these are added tie-beams, to 3 SECTION OP HOUSE.