Page:An account of a voyage to establish a colony at Port Philip in Bass's Strait.djvu/204

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son; their shields are made of a hard wood and neatly carved; their war-spears are barbed with pieces of white spar, or shark's teeth, fastened on with red gum, and within a certain distance must be very dangerous offensive weapons. Their fish-gigs are pointed with the bone of the kangaroo, and with them they strike the rays which lay in shoal water. We saw no fish-hooks, nor other implements for fishing in deep water, nor any appearance of canoe, or other water conveyance[1]. Their food consists chiefly of shell-fish, and their ingenuity in procuring more substantial aliment, seems confined to the construction of a rude trap, upon the projecting points of the harbour, where the water-fowl lighting

  1. I have since been informed, that canoes were found on the river at the head of the port.
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