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[Page 448]

Manners & Customs of the S. Sea Islands

in less than a quarter of an hour

In their carpenters, joiners & stone cutters work &c. they are almost as little obligd to the use of tools as in making these hooks an axe made of Stone in the shape of an adze, a chisel or gough [gouge] made of a human bone, a file or rasp of Coral, skin of Sting rays, & coral sand to polish with; are a sufficient set of tools for building a house & furnishing it with boats; as well as for quarrying & squaring stones for the pavement of any thing which may require it in or about it the neighbourhood. Their stone axes are made of a black stone not very hard but tolerably tough they are of different sizes some that are intended for felling weigh 3 or 4 Pounds others which are usd only for carving not so many ounces Whatever these tools want in goodness is made up by the industry of the people who use them, felling a tree is their greatest labour a large one requires many hands to assist & some days labour before it can be finishd but when once it is down they manage it with far greater dexterity than is credible to an Europaean if it is to be made into boards

 

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