70 THE TASMANIAN ABORIGINES. 



friction of a stick rubbed rapidly up and down a groove 

 in another piece of wood, in the fashion commonly prac- 

 tised in Polynesia. Mr. Koth discusses the subject in an. 

 appendix, and inclines to the opinion that probably the 

 groove method was practised by the Tasmanians, and 

 that if the drill method was ever employed by them at 

 all, it was learnt from the Australians. 



Draioings. — Peron, in the French expedition of 1 802, 

 saw at Maria Island pieces of bark with marks like the 

 gashes which the blacks made on their bodies. Dr. 

 Koss says that at the Ouse he saw squares and circles 

 cut on bark, which he, with some probability, attributed 

 to the blacks. Robinson told BouAvick that on the W est 

 Coast, in 1831, he saw drawings of men and women and 

 curious hieroglyphics. West speaks of draAvings on bark 

 representing a bullock team and cart, made by natives 

 in the North- West. This is apparently copied from 

 Bunce, who states that one of the V.D.L. Co.'s servants 

 reported having seen such a drawing on a bark hut or 

 shelter of the natives. Calder, who is a most reliable 

 authority for anything which he says he himself saw, in 

 his account of a journey between Lake St. Clair and Mac- 

 quarie Harbour, in November, 1840, states that on 

 Painter's Plain, near the Surprise River, he found two 

 native huts recently abandoned, on the bark of which 

 were some extraordinary draAvings in charcoal of men, 

 kangaroo, dogs, and other figures. Also a battle-piece 

 — a native fight. (J. A. I., p. 21.) At first sight this 

 seems conclusive evidence, but, on turning back to the 

 previous day, we learn that he had then found several 

 articles which indicated that a runaway party of con- 

 victs from Macquarie Harbour had passed that way. 

 In any case these drawings were found 40 years after 

 the advent of Europeans. That the aborigines in their 

 wild state had any skill in drawing seems therefore to 

 hang on a very slender thread of evidence. 



Canoes. — The native canoes were formed of bundles of 

 bark lashed together AAath grass or vegetable fibre. 

 Several models of such canoes are preserved in our 

 MuseiuTi. It is generally stated in popular accoimts (and 

 is quoted by Brough Smyth) that they had also catama- 

 rans or rafts, formed of logs 30 feet long, and fastetied 

 by cross-pieces tied with bark. The only authority for 



