Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/373

1770 a few bushes and grass a foot or two high to shelter them from the wind. This probably is their custom while they travel from place to place, and sleep upon the road, in situations where they do not intend to make any stay.

The only furniture belonging to these houses, that we saw at least, was oblong vessels of bark made by the simple contrivance of tying up the ends of a longish piece with a withe, which not being cut off serves for a handle: these we imagined served as buckets to fetch water from the springs, which may sometimes be distant. We have reason to suppose that when they travel these are carried by the women from place to place; indeed, during the few opportunities we had of seeing the women they were generally employed in some laborious occupation, as fetching wood, gathering shell-fish, etc The men, again, maybe constantly carry their arms in their hands, three or four lances in the one, and the machine with which they throw them in the other. These serve the double object of defending them from their enemies and striking any animal or fish they may meet with. Each has also a small bag about the size of a moderate cabbage-net hanging loose upon his back and fastened to a small string which passes over the crown of his head. This seems to contain all their earthly treasures: a lump or two of paint, some fish-hooks and lines, shells to make the fish-hooks of, points of darts, resin, and their usual ornaments, were the general contents.

Thus live these, I had almost said happy, people, content with little, nay, almost nothing; far enough removed from the anxieties attending upon riches, or even the possession of what we Europeans call common necessaries: anxieties intended, maybe, by Providence to counterbalance the pleasure arising from the possession of wished-for attainments consequently increasing with increasing wealth, and in some measure keeping up the balance of happiness between the rich and the poor. From them appear how small are the real wants of human nature, which we Europeans have increased to an excess which would certainly appear incredible to these people could they be told it; nor shall we cease to