1770 HUTS AND FURNITURE 315 
a few bushes and grass a foot or two high to shelter them 
from the wind This probably is their custom while they 
travel from place to place, and sleep upon the road, in 
situations where they do not intend to make any stay. 
The only furniture belonging to these houses, that we 
saw at least, was oblong vessels of bark made by the simple 
contrivance of tying up the ends of a longish piece with a 
withe, which not being cut off serves for a handle: these 
we imagined served as buckets to fetch water from the 
springs, which may sometimes be distant. We have reason to 
suppose that when they travel these are carried by the women 
from place to place; indeed, during the few opportunities we 
had of seeing the women they were generally employed in 
some laborious occupation, as fetching wood, gathering shell- 
fish, etc. The men, again, maybe constantly carry their 
arms in their hands, three or four lances in the one, and 
the machine with which they throw them in the other. 
These serve the double object of defending them from their 
enemies and. striking any animal or fish they may meet 
with. Each has also a small bag about the size of a 
moderate cabbage-net hanging loose upon his back and 
fastened to a small string which passes over the crown of 
his head. This seems to contain all their earthly treasures : 
a lump or two of paint, some fish-hooks and lines, shells 
to make the fish-hooks of, points of darts, resin, and their 
usual ornaments, were the general contents. 
Thus live these, I had almost said happy, people, content 
with little, nay, almost nothing; far enough removed from 
the anxieties attending upon riches, or even the possession 
of what we Europeans call common necessaries: anxieties 
intended, maybe, by Providence to counterbalance the 
pleasure arising from the possession of wished-for attain- 
ments consequently increasing with increasing wealth, and in 
some measure keeping up the balance of happiness between 
the rich and the poor. From them appear how small are 
the real wants of human nature, which we Europeans have 
increased to an excess which would certainly appear incredible 
to these people could they be told it; nor shall we cease to 
