we 
MELVILLE ISLAND. 
two pounds ; they are not round and smootb, but have 
giixteen equal aides, with a little rude carving at the 
handle, to ensure their being held firmer m the hand. 
Their canoes, water-bucketSj and baskets, are made of 
bark, neatly sewed with strips of split cane. The canoes 
consist of one piece of bark, are twenty feet long, twenty- 
eight inches wide, and fifteen deep ; the stem and stern 
are neatly sewed with thin slips of cane, and caulked 
with white clay ; the gunwales are strengthened by two 
small young saplingB (such as grow in marshy places), 
fastened together at each end of the canoe ; the sides are 
Icept from closing by pieces of wood placed across, and 
which also answer as seats. 
"The natives of Melville and Bathurst Islands are 
divided into tribes of from tbirty to fifty persons each. 
I do not think that I ever saw above thirty-five or forty 
men together, although some individuals, sui'priscd by 
them in the forest, have reported having seen a hundred ; 
the noise they make, and their jumping from tree to tree, 
make them often appear more numerous than they 
actually arc. They lead a wandering life, though I think 
each tribe confines itself to a limited district ; and pro- 
bably when tired of one, or their resources are ex- 
hausted, the strongest may usurp that of a weaker. 
In 182-i-5, a tribe of daring athletic men kept con- 
stantly in the neighbourhood of Fort Dundas. In the 
beginning of 1826, a strange tribe visited the settlement, 
and they were generally slight-made men ; but by the 
end of the year the former tribe retuaned, and continued 
to remain in the neighbourhood until the island was 
abandoned in 1829. During the diy season they dia- 
