Page:Journal of the Right Hon. Sir Joseph Banks.djvu/376

318 of the sun and dryness of the season, would take fire. He took, for instance, when he set off a small bit of fire, and wrapping it up in dry grass ran on: this soon blazed; he then laid it down on the most convenient place for his purpose that he could find, and taking up a small part of it, wrapped that in part of the dry rubbish in which he had laid it, proceeding in this manner as long as he thought proper.

Their weapons, offensive at least, were precisely the same wherever we saw them, except that at the very last view we had of the country we saw through our glasses a man who carried a bow and arrows. In this we might have been, but I believe were not, mistaken. Their weapons consisted of only one species, a pike or lance from eight to fourteen feet long: this they threw short distances with their hands, and longer (forty or more yards), with an instrument made for the purpose. The upper part of these lances was made either of cane or the stalk of a plant resembling a bulrush, which was very straight and light: the point was made of very heavy and hard wood, the whole artfully balanced for throwing, though very clumsily made, in two, three, or four joints, at each of which the parts were let into each other. Besides being tied round, the joint was thickly smeared with thin resin, which made it larger and more clumsy than any other part. The points were of several sorts: those which we concluded to be intended to be used against men were most cruel weapons; they were all single pointed, either with the stings of sting-rays, a large one of which served for the point and three or four smaller ones tied the contrary way for barbs, or simply of wood made very sharp and smeared over with resin, into which were stuck many broken bits of sharp shells, so that if such a weapon pierced a man it could scarcely be drawn out without leaving several of those unwelcome guests in his flesh, certain to make the wound ten times more difficult to cure than it otherwise would be. Those lances which we supposed to be used merely for striking fish, birds, etc.,