State Library of NSW
[Page 199]
195. Some account of New Zealand
in nothing but the want of equal strengh & agility
That these people have a larger share of ingenuity than usualy falls to the share lot of nations who have had so little or indeed no commerce with any others appears at first sight their boats the better sort of them at least shew it most evidently they are built of very thin planks sewd together their sides rounding up like ours but very narrow for their lengh Some are immensely long One I saw which the people laid alongside the ship as if to measure how much longer she was than the Canoe which fairly reachd from the anchor which that hung at the bows quite aft & consequently could not be less than feet long but indeed we saw few so large as that all except a few that we saw at opoorage or Mercury bay which were merely trunks of trees hollowd out by fire were more or less ornamented by carving the common fishing canoes had nothing but the face of a man with a monstrous tongue & whose eyes were generaly inlayd with a kind of shell like mother of Pearl in the fore part of them but the larger sort which were seemd to be intended for war were realy
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