Cotmnso,—Ignorance of Ancient New Zealander of Use of Projectiles. 115 ` 
commonly slingers and archers, but those of a more advanced age make use 
of clubs or darts. The bows are made of the best club-wood (casuarina), 
very strong and elastic. They polish them very highly, and perhaps rub 
them with oil from time to time, in order to keep them in repair. Their 
arrows are of reed, near four feet long. The same black wood which the 
Mallicollese employ for the point is likewise made use of at Tanna; but the 
whole point which is frequently above a foot long, is jagged or bearded on 
two or three sides, They have likewise arrows with three points, but these 
are chiefly intended to kill birds and fish. Their slings are made of cocoa- 
nut fibres, and worn round the arm or waist; they have a broad part for 
the reception of the stone, of which the people carry with them several in a 
leaf. The darts or spears are the third sort of missile weapons at Tanna, 
They are commonly made of a thin, knotty, and ill-shaped stick, not exceed- 
ing half-an-inch in diameter, but nine or ten feet long. At the thickest end 
they are shaped into a triangular point, six or eight inches long, and on 
each corner there is a row of eight or ten beards or hooks. These darts they 
throw with great accuracy, at a short distance, by the help of a piece of 
plaited cord, four or five inches long, which has a knob at one end, and an 
eye at the other. They hold the dart between the thumb and forefinger, 
having previously placed the latter in the eye of the rope, the remaining 
part of which is slung round the dart, above the hand, and forms a kind of 
noose round it, serving to guide and confine the dart in its proper direction, 
when it is once projected. I have seen one of these darts thrown, at the 
distance of ten or twelve yards, into a stake four inches in diameter, with 
such violence that the jagged point was forced quite through it. The same 
thing may be said of their arrows; at eight or ten yards distance they shoot 
them very accurately and with great force ; but as they are cautious of 
breaking their bows, they seldom draw them to the full stretch, and there- 
fore, at twenty-five or thirty yards, their arrows have little effect, and are 
not to be dreaded.” 
** The arms of the natives of New Caledonia were clubs, spears, and slings. 
* * * Their spears are fifteen or twenty feet long, and black. They 
throw them by the assistance of such short cords, knobbed at one end and 
looped at the other, as are usual at Tanna, and which seamen call beckets. 
Those of New Caledonia were of superior workmanship, and contained a 
quantity of red wool, which we should have taken for the covering of a new 
sort of animal, if we had not formerly seen the Vampyre or great Indian bat, 
from whence it was taken. Their last weapons were slings, for bows and 
arrows were wholly unknown to them. These slings consisted of a slender 
round cord no thicker than a pack-thread, which had a tassel at one end anda 
loop atthe other end and in the middle, The stones which they used were 
