Page 231 |
Joseph Banks's Descriptions of Places |
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New Zealand (continued) are drawn up with a very gentle motion by which means the fish are insensibly lifted from the bottom; in this manner I have seen them take vast numbers of fish and indeed it is a most general way of fishing all over the coast. Their hooks are but ill made, generaly of bone or shell fastned to a peice of wood; indeed they seem to have little occasion for them for with their netts they take fish much easier than they could do with them. In tillage they excell, as people who are themselves to eat the fruit of their industry and have little else to do but to cultivate nescessarily must. When we first came to Tegadu their crops were just coverd and had not yet began to sprout: the mould was as smooth as in a garden, and every root had its small hillock rangd in a regular Quincunx by lines which with the pegs still remaind in the feild. We had not an opportunity of seeing them work but once saw their tool, which is a long and narrow stake flatted a little and sharpned, across this is fixd a peice of stick for the convenience of pressing it down with the foot; with this simple tool industry teaches them to turn up peices of ground of 6 or 7 acres in extent; indeed the soil is generaly sandy, is therefore
© Derived from State Library of NSW Transcription of Banks's Journal page (vol. 2) 201, February 2004 Published by kind permission of the Library To cite this page use: https://paulturnbull.org/project/southseas/journals/-banks_remarks-231.html |