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[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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