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ORNAMENT OF SAVAGE TRIBES.
stripes and plaids, would have continued the bands or rings round the handle
across the blade. The
New Zealander's instinct taught him better.  He desired not only that his
paddle should be strong,
but should appear so, and his ornament is so disposed as to give an appear-
ance of additional strength to what it would have had if the surface
had remained undecorated. The centre band in the length of the blade
Handle of a Paddle.-B. M.
is continued round on the other side, binding together the border on
the edge, which itself fixes all the other bands.  Had these bands run
out like the centre one, they would have appeared to slip off. The centre
one was the only one that could do so without disturbing the repose.
The swelling form of the handle where additional weight was required
is most beautifully contrived, and the springing of the swell is well
defined by the bolder pattern of the rings.*
Club, Eastern Archipelago.
* Captain Cook and other voyagers repeatedly notice the taste and ingenuity
of the islanders of the Pacific and South Seas:
instancing especially cloths, painted " in such an endless variety of
figures that one might suppose they borrowed their patterns from a
mercer's shop in which the most elegant productions of China and Europe are
collected, besides some original patterns of their own."
The " thousand different patterns " of their basket-work, their
mats, and the fancy displayed in their rich carvings and inlaid shell-work,
are, likewise, constantly mentioned. See The Three Voyages of Captain Cook,
2 vols. Lond. 1841-42; DUMONT D'URVILLE's Voyage au
Pole Sud, 8vo. Paris, 1841; Ditto, Atlas d'Histoire, fol.; PRICHnAD's Natural
History of Man, Lond. 1855; G. W. EARLE'S Native Races of
Indian Archipelago, Lond. 1852; KEsR's General History and Collection of
Voyages and Travels, London, 1811-17.
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