Page:The Aborigines of Victoria and Riverina.djvu/70

65 at. After this, and whilst the weights are still in the canoe, and the props outside, a coat of well-puddled clay is spread all over the interior, which effectually hinders sun cracks. In this condition they are left in the sun to season. After ten or fifteen days' exposure, the bark has become so hard as to be able to retain the shape ever after, no matter how roughly it may be handled. It is, therefore, launched without ceremony upon the waters, where it is destined to float for the few brief years of its existence. After the lapse of two years the bark becomes heavy and sodden, therefore correspondingly unwieldy; so the owner in his rambles keeps his eyes about him, with the view of discovering a suitable tree from which he can take a canoe, wherewith to replace his now frail craft.

According to the size of the canoe required, so is the tree selected from which to take the bark. Heads of families generally have vessels large enough to convey all their families and requirements at once. Bachelors, however, having a fewer impedimenta, usually content themselves with vessels of much less capacity, finding such more suited for pursuing aacquatic [sic] birds during the moulting season, thousands of which they capture in their then helpless condition. In harpooning fish too, the small canoe is found most managable.

The natives inhabiting districts where large rivers or lakes abound, hold their canoes in higher estimation than they do any other of their possessions.

Of shields they have two kinds, one for serious conflicts and the other for display merely. The former is triangular, and two feet six inches in length; in the centre of the angle