Page:Voyage in search of La Perouse, volume 1 (Stockdale).djvu/298

276 seemed only designed as a point of support, to increase the muscular strength of those parts. One of them, probably with a similar view, had his left arm tied in three different places, over the biceps muscle; some flat bits of wood, on the outside of the arm, supporting the strain of the cord.

Those savages appeared to handle the bow with much address. One of them brought on board the Esperance, a booby, which he had brought down with an arrow; and the fatal wound was seen in the belly of the bird.

The industry of those islanders seemed to be particularly directed to the fabrication of their arms, which were formed with great care. We admired the skill with which they had coated their bow-strings with a resinous substance, which gave them, at first sight, the appearance of catgut. The middle of the string was done round with bark, in order to save it from wear, by giving the impulse to the arrow. The inferior part of the arrows was very light, being formed of the stalk of the saccharum spontaneum; and the other part consisted of very hard wood, well pointed. The joining is ingeniously fastened with about thirty turns of bark, as is also the part of the arrow which bears upon the firing, to give it the greater solidity. Their