When desirous of making sail, the first process is to set up in the bow two poles as masts, and on the weather side a longer and stouter one is laid across the gunwale, and projects outwards and backwards as an outrigger.  These are further supported by stays and guys, and, together with another long pole forked at the end, serve as a frame to support the pressure of the sails, which are usually two in number, made of matting of pandanus leaves, and average four and a half feet in width and twelve in height.  The sails have a slender pole on each side to which the matting is secured by small pegs; when set, they are put up on end side by side, travelling along the backstay by means of a cane grommet.  When blowing fresh it is usual to keep a man standing on the temporary outrigger to counteract by his weight the inclination of the canoe to leeward.  From the whole sail being placed in the bow these canoes make much leeway, but when going free may attain a maximum speed of seven or eight knots an hour.  Except in smooth water they are very wet, and the bailer (a melon shell) is in constant requisition.

Bows, arrows, spears, throwing-sticks and clubs.

The inhabitants of the mainland and Prince of Wales Islands use the spear and throwing-stick, but throughout the remainder of Torres Strait bows and arrows are the chief weapons.  The bows, which are large and powerful, are made of split bamboo, and the arrows of a cane procured from New Guinea, afterwards headed with hard wood variously pointed and sometimes barbed.  The Kowraregas obtain bows and arrows from their northern neighbours, and occasionally use them in warfare, but prefer the spears which are made by the blacks of the mainland.  We saw three kinds of spear at Cape York; one is merely a sharpened stick used for striking fish, the two others, tipped and barbed with bone, are used in war.  The principal spear (kalak or alka) measures about nine feet in length, two-thirds of which are made of she-oak or casuarina, hard and heavy, and the remaining third of a soft and very light wood; one end has a small hollow to receive the knob of the throwing-stick, and to the other the leg-bone of a kangaroo six inches long, sharpened at each end, is secured in such a manner as to furnish a sharp point to the spear and a long barb besides.  Another spear, occasionally used in fighting, has three or four heads of wood each of which is tipped and barbed with a smaller bone than is used for the kalak.

The throwing-stick in use at Cape York extends down the North-East coast at least as far as Lizard Island; it differs from those in use in other parts of Australia in having the projecting knob for fitting into the end of the spear parallel with the plane of the stick and not at rightangles.  It is made of casuarina wood, and is generally three feet in length, an inch and a quarter broad, and half an inch thick.  At the end a double slip of melon shell, three and a