Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/298

240 physicians almost useless; indeed I am inclined to think that their knowledge of physic is but small, judging from the state of their surgery which more than once came under my inspection. Of this art they seemed totally ignorant. I saw several wounded by our shot, without the smallest application on their wounds; one in particular who had a musket ball shot right through the fleshy part of his arm, came out of his house and showed himself to us, making a little use of the wounded arm. The wound, which was then of several days' standing, was totally void of inflammation, and in short appeared to be in so good a state, that had any application been made use of, I should not have failed to inquire carefully what it had been which had produced so good an effect.

A further proof, and not a weak one, of the sound health that these people enjoy, may be taken from the number of old people we saw. Hardly a canoe came off to us without bringing one or more; and every town had several, who, if we may judge by grey hairs and worn-out teeth, were of a very advanced age. Of these few or none were decrepit; the greater number seemed in vivacity and cheerfulness to equal the young, and indeed to be inferior to them in nothing but the want of equal strength and agility.

That the people have a larger share of ingenuity than usually falls to the lot of nations who have had so little or no commerce with any others appears at first sight: their boats, the better sort at least, show it most evidently. These are built of very thin planks sewn together, their sides rounding up like ours, but very narrow for their length. Some are immensely long. One I saw which the people laid alongside the ship, as if to measure how much longer she was than the canoe, fairly reached from the anchor that hung at the bows quite aft, but indeed we saw few so large as that. All, except a few we saw at Opoorage or Mercury Bay, which were merely trunks of trees hollowed out by fire, were more or less ornamented by carving. The common fishing canoe had no ornament but