U7°- a fmalj dent or hollow, which is made for that purpofe in Adguft. r r
— s--- i the fhaft of the lance near the point, but from which it
eafily flips, upon being impelled forward: when the lance
is laid along upon this machine, and fecured in a proper po-
fition by the knob, the perfon that is to throw it holds it
over his fhoulder, and after fhaking it, delivers both the
throwing flick and lance with all his force, but the flick
being flopped by the crofs piece which comes againft the
fhoulder, with a fudden jerk, the lance flies forward with
incredible fwiftnefs, and with fo good an aim, that at the
diftance of fifty yards thefe Indians were more fure of their
mark than we could be with a Angle bullet. Befides thefe
lances, we faw no offenlive weapon upon this coaft, except
when we took our laft view of it with our glafles, and then
we thought we faw a man with a bow and arrows, in which
it is poflible we might be miftaken. We faw, however, at
Botany Bay, a fhield or target, of an oblong fhape, about
three feet long, and eighteen inches broad, which was made
of the bark of a tree: this was fetched out of a hut by one
of the men that oppofed our landing, who, when he ran
away, left it behind him, and upon taking it up, we found
that it had been pierced through with a Angle pointed lance
near the center. Thefe fhields are certainly in frequent ufe
among the people here, for though this was the only one
that we faw in their pofleflion, we frequently found trees
from which they appeared manifeftly to have been cut, the
marks being eafily diftinguifhed from thofe that were made
by cutting buckets: fometimes alfo we found the flrields cut
out, but not yet taken off from the tree, the edges of tire
bark only being a little raifed by wedges, fo that thefe people
appear to have difcovered that the bark of a tree becomes
thicker and ftronger by being fuffered to remain upon the
trunk after it has been cut round.
The
The canoes of New Holland are as mean and rude as the 1770.
houfes. Thofe on the fouthern part of the coaft are nothing . An.s!.‘t’ ,
more than a piece of bark, about twelve feet long, tied together
at the ends, and kept open in the middle by fmall
bows of wood: yet in a veflel of this conftruction we once
faw three people. In fhallow water they are fet forward by
a pole, and in deeper by paddles, about eighteen inches
long, one of which the boatman holds in each hand ; mean
as they are, they have many conveniences, they draw but
little water, and they are very light, fo that they go upon
mud banks to pick up fitell flfh, the moft important ufe to
which they can be applied, better perhaps than veflels o f
any other conftrudiion. We obferved, that in the middle of
thefe canoes there was a heap of fea-weed, and upon that a
fmall fire; probably that the fifh may be broiled and eaten
the moment it is caught.
The canoes that we faw when we advanced farther to the
northward, are not made of bark, but of the trunk of a tree:
hollowed, perhaps by fire. They are about fourteen feet
long, and, being very narrow, are fitted with an outrigger-
to prevent their overfetting, Thefe are worked with paddles,
that are fo large as to require both hands to manage
one of them : the outflde is wholly unmarked by any toolr
but at each end the wood is left longer at the top than at the-
bottom, fo that there is a projection beyond the hollow part
refembling the end of a plank; the fides are tolerably thin,
but how the tree is felled and fafhioned, we had no opportu*
nity to learn. The only tools that we faw among them are
an adze, wretchedly made of ftone, fome fmall pieces of tire
fame fubftance in form of a wedge, a Wooden mallet, and
feme fliells and fragments of corah. For polifhing their
throwing flicks, and the points of their lances, they ufe the
leaves of a kind of wild fig-tree, which bites upon wood almoft