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seen on the water, and the size of their canoes was quite
beyond anything hitherto noticed : they were near thirty feet in
length and seven feet broad, with proportionate depth, being
made of planks sewn together with strips of twisted bark and
rushes : the bow and stern were flat, and nearly upright. Six
round pieces of wood formed the thwarts, which were fastened
to the gunwale by ropes of twisted rushes; and there were
six short oars on each side. These oars were ahout seven feet
long, the blade being a flat piece of wood about sixteen inches
in length, fastened to the handle by rush rope passed through
two holes in the blade. Of such burthen were these boats
(rather than canoes), that two men standing on one gunwale
did not bring it down to the water. Each was steered by an
old woman, who sat silently abaft with a paddle. All the
party were quite naked excepting the old women.
“ From one of the old women a small bag was obtained,
in exchange for a shirt and some woollen stuff, which proved to
contain white dust, feathers, parrots’ heads, hawks’ feet, white
earth, and red ochre. One of the men had an old hatchet, and
made signs that he wanted to sharpen it at our grindstone : of
course we complied with his request, and allowed a man and a
young lad to come on board for that purpose. The lad turned
the stone, while the man held the axe; and extremely well it
was sharpened. The spears and slings were similar to those
seen in other places.
“ Although these natives seemed to be remarkably well disposed,
it was not quite pleasant to see thirty of them looking
over the schooner’s bulwark, while our boats were away and
only live or six men left on board; however, they made no
attempt to do any thing improper, and before sunset left us
peaceably, striking up a song as they paddled away.”
Mr. Bynoe remarked, that in the neighbourhood of Easter
Bay (Obstruction Sound), the country had much the appearance
of English park scenery ; large clumps of trees growing
straight and tall, with intervening spaces of clear ground covered
with long grass. In this place he found great numbers
of wigwams and deserted canoes. Some of the former were of
large dimensions, and various shapes; two were like inverted
whale-boats, each of which might hold forty or fifty people;
and in the long ones (six feet high), Mr. Bynoe could walk
upright. All of them were built of slight materials, such as
branches of trees covered with long grass. Five or six large
wigwams stood together in each place; and near them canoes
had evidently been built, for many trees had been felled and
harked close by. The traces of fire were visible, which had
been trained around the roots of the trees; and many large
pieces of bark were lying about, partly sewed together. Four
good canoes were found in one place, one of the four being
quite new : and there were many old or broken ones. They also
saw on nearly every sandy point a neatly-constructed small
wigwam, about two feet high, at the entrance of which was a
platted rush noose, intended as a snare to catch swans probably,
which were numerous ahout the adjoining grounds, and
generally roost on those sandy points. Many deer, like a kind
of roebuck, were seen by Mr. Bynoe, but he did not suceeed
in shooting one. Horse tracks were seen near the upper part of
Obstruction Sound; showing that the eastern Patagonians
occasionally visit this part of the western coast. Mr. Bynoe
suggested the possibility of the natives of Skyring Water travelling
overland, building canoes, and then going northward
along the west coast; but I do not myself think it so likely as
that the Chonos Indians should select such a spot, abounding
in food, to pass their winter in, or to stay at for a considerable
time while building canoes. Probably, when Mr. Bynoe was
there (being summer-time) the tribe, whose winter quarters it
had been, were dispersed along the sea-coast in search of
seal, eggs, and young birds. In support of his idea Mr. Bynoe
says, “ I only met one canoe, and that of the bark kind,
in the Mesier Channel: whence could that one have come ?
None of the bark canoes have been seen by us on the west
coast, excepting in that instance, and in Obstruction Sound.
The distance from Skyring Water to the head of Obstruction
Sound is small, though sufficiently difficult to traverse to
prevent transporting canoes, because of low prickly brushwood.
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