156 GENERAL ACCOUNT OF SOUTH SEA ISLANDS cu. vir 
The shell is first cut by the edge of another shell into square 
pieces. These are shaped with files of coral, with which 
they work in a manner surprising to any one who does not 
know how sharp corals are. A hole is then bored in the 
middle by a drill, which is simply any stone that may 
chance to have a sharp corner in it tied to the handle of a 
cane. This is turned in the hand like a chocolate mill until 
the hole is made; the file then comes into the hole and 
completes the hook. This is made, in such a one as the 
figure shows, in less than a quarter of an hour. 
In their carpentry, joinery, and stone-cutting, etc., they 
are scarcely more indebted to the use of tools than in making 
these hooks. A stone axe in the shape of an adze, a chisel 
or gouge made of a human bone, a file or rasp of coral, the 
skin of sting-rays and coral sand to polish with, are a suffi- 
cient set of tools for building a house and furnishing it with 
boats, as well as for quarrying and squaring stones for the 
pavement of anything which may require it in the neighbour- 
hood. Their axes are made of a black stone, not very hard, 
but tolerably tough: they are of different sizes, some, 
intended for felling, weigh three or four pounds; others, 
which are used only for carving, not as many ounces. 
Whatever quality is lacking in these tools, is made up by 
the industry of the people who use them. Felling a tree is 
their greatest labour; a large one requires many hands to 
assist, and some days before it can be finished, but when 
once it is down they manage it with far greater dexterity 
than is credible to a European. If it is to be made into 
boards they put wedges into it, and drive them with such 
dexterity (as they have told me, for I never saw it) that 
they divide it into slabs of three or four inches in thickness, 
seldom meeting with an accident if the tree is good. These 
slabs they very soon dubb down with their axes to any given 
thinness, and in this work they certainly excel; indeed, 
their tools are better adapted for this than for any other 
labour. I have seen them dubb off the first rough coat of 
a plank at least as fast as one of our carpenters could have 
done it; and in hollowing, where they are able to raise 
