"Upon this hull is built up the top side planking, which, in the specimen under consideration is on the starboard side of one piece twelve feet four inches in length and eight inches in greatest depth; on the port side it is in two pieces, fourteen feet in length, and nine inches in greatest depth; both are an inch thick, adzed level to the deck above and sinuous below to follow the irregular curves of the hull. To the hull this planking is attached by a series of lashings placed at intervals of from four to ten inches. The lashings, consisting always of the flat sinnet braid called "kafa," are passed four times through holes bored half an inch within the edge, and knotted at each pair of holes, never being carried along from pair to pair. Where on the port side two planks join, a triangular lashing attaches each to each and to the hull. I have no reliable information of the composition and application of the caulking used in the seams.
The Tahitians caulked their canoes with the husk of coconut and gum of breadfruit;† the Penrhyn Islanders stopped holes and seams with coconut husk steeped in water and pounded like flax;‡ and the Solomon Islanders used a kind of vegetable putty from the nut of Parinarium laurinum."
