32 COOK'S VOYAGE 
health : in all our vifits to their towns, where young and old, 
men and women, crouded about us, prompted by the fame 
curiolity that carried us to look at them, we never faw a fingle 
perfon who appeared to ha v e any bodily complaint, nor among 
the numbers that we have feen naked, did we once perceive 
the flighted eruption upon the Iki.n, or any marks that an 
eruption had left behind : at fxrft, indeed, obferving that fome 
of them when they came off to us were marked in patches with 
a white flowery appearance upon different parts of their bo- 
dies, we thought that they were leprous; or highly fcorbutic ; 
but upon examination we found that thefe marks were owing 
to their having been wetted by the fprey of the fea in their 
paflage, which, when it was dried away, left the falts behind 
it in a fine white powder. 
Another proof of health, which we have mentioned upon a 
former occaiion, is the facility with which the wounds healed 
that had left fears behind them, and that we faw in a recent 
ftate ; when we faw the man who had been fhot with a mufket 
ball thro’ the flefhy part of his arm, his wound feemed to be fo 
well digefted, and in fo fair a way of being perfectly healed, 
that if 1 had not known no application had been made to it, 
I fliould certainly have enquired, with a very interefted curio- 
flty , after the vulnerary herbs, and furgical art of the country. 
A farther proof that human nature is here untainted with 
difeafe, is the great number of old men that we faw, many of 
whom, by the lofs of their hair and teeth, appeared to be very 
ancient, yet none of them were decrepit, and though not equal 
to the young in mufcular ftrength, were not a whit behind 
them in cheerfulnefs and vivacity. 
CHAP. X. 
Of the canoes and navigation of the inhabitants of New Zealand ; 
their tillage , weapons, & c. 
T H E ingenuity of thefe people appears in nothing more 
than in their canoes ; they are long and narrow, and in 
fhspe very much refemble a New England whale boat : the lar- 
ger fort feem to be built chiefly for war, and will carry from 
forty to eighty, or an hundred armed men. We meafured 
one which lay afhore atTolaga : fhe was fixty-eight feet and 
an half long, five feet broad, and three feet and an half deep ; 
the bottom was lharp, with itrait fldes like a„wedge, and con- 
fided of three lengths, hollowed out to about two inches, or an 
