Series 03: Joseph Banks - Endeavour journal, 25 August 1768 - 12 July 1771 (vol. 2) - No. 0407
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[Page 407]
303.
Some Account of New Holland
Tribe which visited & consisted to our knowledge of 21 people & may be of several more had only one such belonging to them How tedious must it be for these people to be ferried over a river a mile or two wide by threes & fours at a time how well therefore worth the pains for them to stock themselves better with boats if they could do it
I am inclind to beleive that besides these Canoes the Northern People know & make use of the Bark one of the South & that from having seen one of the small paddles left by them upon a small Island where they had been fishing for Turtle it lay upon a heap of Turtle shells & bones Trophies of the good living they had had when there & with it lay a broken staff of a Turtle pegg & a rotten line tools which had been worn out I suppose in the service of Catching them We had great reason to beleive that at some season of the year the weather is much more moderate than we found it otherwise the Indians never could have venturd in any canoes that we saw half so far as