222 cook's first voyage august, 



encies, they draw but little water, and they are very 

 light, so that they go upon mud banks to pick up 

 shell-fish, the most important use to which they can 

 be applied, better perhaps than vessels of any other 

 construction. We observed, that in the middle of 

 these canoes there was a heap of sea-weed, and upon 

 that a small fire ; probably that the fish may be broil- 

 ed and eaten the moment it is caught. 



The canoes that we saw 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 oversetting. 

 These are worked with paddles,- that are so large as 

 to require both hands to manage one of them : the 

 outside is wholly unmarked by any tool, but at each 

 end the wood is left longer at the top than at the 

 bottom, so that there is a projection beyond the hol- 

 low part resembling the end of a plank ; the sides 

 are tolerably thin, but how the tree is felled and 

 fashioned, we had no opportunity to learn. The 

 only tools that we saw among them are an adze, 

 wretchedly made of stone, some small pieces of the 

 same substance in form of a wedge, a wooden mal- 

 let, and some shells and fragments of coral. For po- 

 lishing their throwing sticks, and the points of their 

 lances, they use the leaves of a kind of wild fig-tree, 

 which bites upon wood almost as keenly as the shave- 

 grass of Europe, which is used by our joiners: with 

 such tools, the making even such a canoe as I have 

 described must be a most difficult and tedious 

 labour : to those who have been accustomed to the 

 use of metal, it appears altogether impracticable ; 

 but there are few difficulties that will not yield to 

 patient perseverance ; and he who does all he can, 

 will certainly produce effects that greatly exceed his 

 apparent power. 



The utmost freight of these canoes is four people ; 

 and if more at any time wanted to come over the 



