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the ends of them in so dextrous a manner that it was next to impossible for the eye to trace their connections. For the other I shall say nothing but referr intirely to the few drawings which I had an opportunity of getting made of them; premising however that the beauty of all their carvings depended intirely on the design, for the execution was so rough that when you came near it was difficult to find any bea[u]ties in the things which struck you most at a distance.
After having said so much of their workmanship it will be nescessary to say something of their tools. As they have no metal among them these are made of Stone of different kinds, their hatchets especialy of any hard stone they can get but cheifly of a kind of Green Talk which is very hard and at the same time tough; with axes of this stone they cut so clean that it would often puzzle a man to say if the wood they have shapd was or was not cut with an Iron hatchet. These axes they value above all their riches and would seldom part with them for any thing we could offer. But their nicer work which requires nicer edge tools they do with fragments of Jasper, which they break and use the edges of it that are sharp like flints till they are blunt,
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Voyaging Accounts |  |
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 198, February 2004
Published by kind permission of the Library
To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-228.html