Having described their fighting Canoes I shall next describe the Arm[s] with which they attack their enemies both by sea and land.   these are Clubs, spears or Lances, Slings, and stones which they throw by the hand.   the Clubs are made of a hard wood and are about 8 or 9 feet long.   the one half is made flatish with two edges and the other half is round and not thicker than to be easily grasped by the hand; the lances are of various length some _^ ^{from 12} 20 or 30 feet and are generaly point ^arm'd at the small end with the stings of sting-rays which makes them very dangerous weapons. Altho these people have bows and arrow[s] and those none of the worst, we are told that they never use them in their wars which doubtless is very extraordinary and not easily accounted for; they have very curious breast plates made of small wickers pieces of matting &C^a and nea[t]ly cover'd with sharks teeth, pearl oysters Shells, birds feathers & dogs hair.   thus much for their arms &C^a

I [s]hall now describe their method ofmakeing cloth.   Which in my opinion is the only curious manufacture they have   All their cloth is I beleive made from the bark of trees, the finest is made from a plan[t] which they cul[t]ivate for no other purpose, D^r Solander thinks it is the same plant the bark of which the Chinese make paper of.   They let this plant grow till it is about six or eight feet high the stem is than about as thick as ones thum or thicker.   after this they cut it down and lay it a certain time in water this makes the bark strip easy off the out side of which is than scraped off with a rough shell, after this is done it looks like long strips of raged linnen.   these they lay together, by means of a fine paste made of some sort of a root, to the breadth of a yard more or less and in length Six, Eight or Ten yards or more according _^^to the use it is for; after it is thus put together it is beat out to its proper breadth and fineness upon a long square piece of wood with wooden beaters the cloth being kept wet all the time, the beaters are made of hard wood with four square sides and about a foot long including the handle which is round   each of the square sides are _^ ^{about 3 or 4 inches broad and} cut into grooves of different fineness     this makes the Cloth look at first sight as if it was wove with threed but I believe the principal use of the grooves is to facilitate the beating it out -

Voyaging Accounts