1770 WEAPONS 319 
had generally simple points of wood; or if they were barbed, 
it was with only one splinter of wood. The instrument 
with which they threw them was a plain stick or piece of 
wood 2% or 3 feet in length, at one end of which was a 
small knob or hook, and near the other a kind of cross-piece 
(\ 
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to hinder it from slipping out of their hands. With this 
contrivance, simple as it is, and ill-fitted for that purpose, 
they throw the lances forty yards or more with a swiftness 
and steadiness truly surprising. The knob being hooked 
into a small dent made in the top of the lance, they hold 
it over their shoulder, and shaking it an instant, as if 
balancing it, throw it with the greatest ease imaginable. 
The neatest of these throwing sticks that we saw was made 
of a hard reddish wood, polished and shining: the sides were 
flat and about two inches in breadth, and the handle, or part 
to keep it from dropping out of the hand, covered with thin 
layers of very white polished bone. These I believe to be 
the things which many of our people were deceived by, 
imagining them to be wooden swords, clubs, ete., according 
to the direction in which they happened to see them. 
Defensive weapons we saw only in Sting-ray’s Bay and there 
only a single instance: a man who attempted to oppose our 
landing came down to the beach with a shield of an oblong 
shape about 3 feet long and 14 broad, made of the bark of 
a tree. This he left behind when he ran away, and we 
found upon taking it up that it had plainly been pierced 
through with a single-pointed lance near the centre. That 
such shields were frequently used in that neighbourhood we 
had, however, sufficient proof, often seeing upon trees the 
places from whence they had been cut, and sometimes the 
shields themselves cut out but not yet taken from the tree, 
the edges of the bark only being a little raised with wedges. 
This shows that these people certainly know how much 
thicker and stronger bark becomes by being suffered to 
remain upon the tree some time after it is cut round. 
