He also observes, that they had a bamboo or hollow cane from which fire and smoke was observed to issue; but I am disposed to think, that the conjecture of having seen fire could only have been occasioned by the appearance of smoke, which we naturally suppose to have proceeded from fire, for it is probable that fire and smoke being projected suddenly from any confined engine, would occasion some degree of explosion, although it is also probable that the gentlemen in the Endeavour’s boat might not have been near enough to have heard it:  however, after all, there is much reason to believe, that what Captain Cook saw upon that coast was the very practice used here, where we saw it in a much nearer interview, as some of our people had it blown in their eyes.  Their chief, upon hostile occasions, powdered his body all over, so that it was no difficult matter to discover him.

They also upon such occasions painted their faces red; some had marks upon their arms and shoulders, occasioned by scarifying those parts in long stripes, and letting the sore rise above the surface of the skin; they frequently wore a bone or reed thrust through the septum of the nose, and, like the natives of Lord Howe’s Groupe, had also holes cut through the wings of the nose, into which were fixed short pieces of hollow reed, as ladies wear wires to keep the ears open when newly bored; into these hollows or rings they occasionally stuck long pieces of reed, which are no doubt considered by them as ornamental.  The men in general were well looking people, but such of their women as I saw were very ordinary.

The weapons used by the people of this island were lances of different kinds, some were made of a kind of ebony, or hard wood, about ten feet long, frequently ornamented with feathers of different colours at the upper end; others were made of bamboo, pointed with hard wood; the lance is thrown by hand, but they had not the use of the throwing stick, like the natives of New South Wales:  they also, in their quarrels, used the sling for throwing stones, which appears to be made of some tough dried leaf, several times doubled; the strings were manufactured from some soft, silky, and fibrous plant; they throw a round hard pebble, of which they generally carried a small nett full about them; the stones were about the size of a small fowl’s egg, and flew with much force, and great exactness from the sling:  they had also a long unhandy kind of club.  They used, in fishing, a fishing spear, small seine netts, and hooks and lines; their hooks were of tortoise-shell, from which circumstance there can be no doubt but they have either turtle in their neighbourhood, or the tortoise upon the island.