Page:Aboriginesofvictoria01.djvu/496

412 apart by stays. Should a leak occur, the hole is stopped with clay. In making large canoes, the bow is constructed as above described, but, in order to give greater strength and security, a semicircular piece of bark is fitted into one end. That end, when the piece is so fitted, is of course the stern.

According to the information I have received, the largest canoes made by the natives of Victoria are about eighteen feet in length; and a vessel of that size will carry five or six men, or more. The late Mr. Thomas saw the natives crossing the strait between the mainland and French Island in a canoe in which there were four persons. Mr. Peter Beveridge says that the natives of the Lower Murray (in Victoria) make canoes from the bark of the red-gum. They generally select a tree with a bend in it, as that saves them a great many hours' work in the manufacture of their tiny craft; because, if they use the bark of a straight stem, they have to give it the necessary curve at each end, by means of fire.

On leaving one district for another, the Aborigines conceal their canoes in the scrub on the borders of the lake or swamp on which they have been used, and, as it is seldom that they remain more than six weeks at one camping place, shifting, as they must, from place to place in search of game, it happens that most of the lakes and swamps have hidden near the water's edge bark canoes, and so carefully concealed in the rushes and scrub as not to be discovered easily by even their own people.

In the forests near the sources of the River Powlett, and elsewhere in Victoria, there still remain many trees from which bark has been taken to make canoes and water vessels.