NOinil QUKKNSLAND KTHNOGRAPIIY ROTH. 11 



seen a more or less central tie, or a tie fore and aft, ia addition : 

 fixed light forward in tlie bows is an upriglit fork upon wliicli 

 the harpoon rests. A single paddle with a lanceolate l)lade is 

 used, and is certainly very different from the model made foi' me 

 by the Fitzroy River Natives, which was somewhat after the 

 nature of a giadually-tapering comparatively shoit stick, the 

 thicker extremity being whittled down on the one side only, into 

 a shallow more or less concave blade. The material used for the 

 Fitzroy paddle was said to have been originally made from 

 " brigalow," but more usually from the less heavy " bottle-tree." 



11. Dug-Outs, in the condition met with along the Queensland 

 Coast-line, are, like many other objects of Ethnological interest 

 observable in Cape York Peninsula, of Papuan origin, and shew 

 modifications in proportion with the distance from the area of 

 main contact. At the same time it must be remembered tliat, 

 certainly within the last eiglity years, the Torres Strait Islanders 

 (all of them Papuans) would travel south a long way down the 

 Barrier Reef during the north west season, and return with the 

 south east. In its original form, the dug-out canoe consists of 

 a body with two outriggers, of which the suppression of one 

 constitutes the primary modification, their method of construction 

 (attachment ot boom to float, etc.), forming the secondary. The 

 body — the ' dug-out ' as its name implies — is made from a suitable 

 tree-trunk fashioned more or less at each end into a recognisable 

 bow and stern respectively, and hollowed out with native-gouges, 

 etc., and tiring, as already described. The timber used varies 

 with what is available in the different areas : — Thus, on the 

 Endeavour River I found it to be Boinhax malabaricum, D.O. 

 (KYI. nanggarbura), ExccBcaria agallocha, Linn. (KYI. melaba), 

 Alstonia verticillosa, F. v. M. (KYI. morrangal), and Somierotia 

 acida, Linu. (KYI. pornupan) ; at Cape Bedford, Canarium aus- 

 tralasicuiu, F.v.M. (KYI. gundar), and Gmeliiia macrophylla, 

 Benth. (KYI. detchi) ; at the Batavia River Bonibax, etc. It is 

 distinctly a sea-going craft ascom|)ared with the bark-canoe. The 

 original form of double outrigger dugout is found on both 

 shores of the Cape York Peninsula ; at the Batavia River only, 

 on the (jrulf side, and in the neighbourhood of Cape Grenville on 

 the east coast. It is noteworthy that now and again during the 

 north west season foreign dug-outs are washed ashore, at the 

 mouth of the Batavia. 



12. On the Batavia River, the outer side of the body of the dug- 

 out is but little worked, except of course at the ends, where there 

 is a projecting ledge beyond the excavated part (tig. 10) ; that at 

 the bows forms a sort of platform, that at the stern a kind of lip. 



