296 MOEE NATIVES VISIT US. 



apparantly the mouth of a larg'e river. They were 

 in three canoes carrying respectively seven^ four^ and 

 three people^ and paddled up alongside without hesi- 

 tation^ appearing" anxious to be admitted on hoard, 

 holding on by the chains and peeping into the ports 

 in a most inquisitive manner. With the exception 

 of two or three cocoa-nuts nothing was brought to 

 barter with, but they readily parted with bows and 

 arrows, of which they had a very large supply. 

 These bows appear to be made of the hard heavy 

 wood of the cocoa-nut tree, pointed at each end, 

 and varying in leng-th from five to six feet, with a 

 greatest width of an inch and a quarter and thickness 

 of five-eighths. The string is a strip of rattan three- 

 eighths of an inch wide. The arrows are precisely 

 similar to those used by the Torres Strait Islanders, 

 consisting of a head of cocoa-nut wood, nine to 

 eighteen inches in length, shipped into a light 

 reed 2f to 3^ feet in length, and secured by a 

 neat cane plaiting. They are variously barbed on 

 the edges in one or more series, or ftirnished 

 with constrictions at short intervals which would 

 cause a piece readUy to break off in a woimd 

 and remain there. Some were headed with a piece 

 of bamboo shaped like a gouge or scoop, and several 

 other varieties were observed. This is the first 

 occasion of our meeting with these weapons, which 

 appear almost completely to have superseded the 

 spear of which only a few small ones were seen in the 

 canoes. In exchange for their bows and arrows the 



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