of a tree hollowed, perhaps by fire.
They are about fourteen feet long, and, being very narrow, are fitted
with an outrigger to prevent their oversetting. These are worked with
paddles, that are so large as to require both hands to manage one of
them: The outside is wholly unmarked by any tool, but at each end the
wood is left longer at the top than at the bottom, so that there is a
projection beyond the hollow part resembling the end of a plank; the
sides are tolerably thin, but how the tree is felled and fashioned, we
had no opportunity to learn. The only tools that we saw among them are
an adze, wretchedly made of stone, some small pieces of the same
substance in form of a wedge, a wooden mallet, and some shells and
fragments of coral. For polishing their throwing-sticks, and the points
of their lances, they use the leaves of a kind of wild fig-tree, which
bites upon wood almost as keenly as the shave-grass of Europe, which is
used by our joiners: With such tools, the making even such a canoe as I
have described, must be a most difficult and tedious labour: To those
who have been accustomed to the use of metal, it appears altogether
impracticable; but there are few difficulties that will not yield to
patient perseverance, and he who does all he can, will certainly produce
effects that greatly exceed his apparent power.[94]

[Footnote 94: This very just observation cannot be too forcibly urged,
or too frequently recollected. The deficiency of which most men have
reason to complain, is not that of ability, but of industry and
application. Genius is pursued and coveted, because it is imagined to be
a sort of creating energy which produces at will, and without
labour.--It is therefore desirable to indolent minds. But this is a
mistake of no small detriment, though of very common occurrence. Few
people perhaps discover it to be so, till they have to condemn
themselves for the loss of much of their best time, spent in idly
wishing for the inspiration which is to do such wonders, for them
without exertion on their part. Reader, in place of this, fix on some
useful or laudable work, and set about _doing_ it.--E.]

The utmost freight of these canoes is four people, and if more at any
time wanted to come over the river, one of those who came first was
obliged to go back for the rest: From this circumstance we conjectured
that the boat we saw, when we were lying in Endeavour River, was the
only one in the neighbourhood: We ha