QZO COOK'S VOYAGE TO FEB. 



nishing ; for some of these stained gourd-shells are 

 covered with a kind of lacker ; and, on other occasions, 

 they use a strong size, or gluey substance, to fasten 

 their things together. Their wooden dishes and bowls, 

 out of which they drink their ava, are of the etooa- 

 tree, or cordia, as neat, as if made in our turning-lathe, 

 and perhaps better polished. And amongst their 

 articles of handicraft, may be reckoned small square 

 fans of mat or wicker-work, with handles tapering 

 from them of the same or of wood, which are neatly 

 wrought with small cords of hair, and fibres of the 

 cocoa-nut core intermixed. The great variety of 

 fishing-hooks are ingeniously made, some of bone, 

 others of wood pointed with bone, and many of 

 pearl shell. Of the last, some are like a sort 

 that we saw at Tongataboo, and others simply 

 curved, as the common sort at Otaheite, as well as 

 the wooden ones. The bones are mostly small and 

 composed of two pieces; and all the different sorts 

 have a barb, either on the inside like ours, or on the 

 outside opposite the same part ; but others have both, 

 the outer one being farthest from the point. Of this 

 last sort, one was procured nine inches long, of a 

 single piece of bone, which, doubtless, belonged to 

 some large fish. The elegant form and polish of this 

 could not, certainly, be outdone by any European 

 artist, even if he should add all his knowledge in 

 design, to the number and convenience of his tools. 

 They polish their stones by constant friction, with 

 pumice-stone in water ; and such of their working 

 instruments or tools as I saw, resembled those of the 

 southern islands. Their hatchets, or rather adzes, 

 were exactly of the same pattern, and either made of 

 the same sort of blackish stone, or of a clay-coloured 

 one. They have also little instruments made of a 

 single shark's tooth, some of which are fixed to the 

 fore-part of a dog's jaw-bone, and others to a thin 

 wooden handle of the same shape, and at the other 

 end there is a bit of string fastened through a small 



