some large fish.  The elegant form and polish of this could not certainly be outdone by any European artist, even if he should add all his knowledge in design to the number and convenience of his tools.  They polish their stones by constant friction, with pumice-stone in water; and such of their working instruments, or tools, as I saw, resembled those of the Southern Islands.  Their hatchets, or rather adzes, were exactly of the same pattern, and either made of the same sort of blackish stone, or of a clay-coloured one.  They have also little instruments, made of a single shark’s tooth, some of which are fixed to the fore-part of a dog’s jawbone, and others to a thin wooden handle of the same shape; and at the other end there is a bit of string fastened through a small perforation.  These serve as knives occasionally, and are perhaps used in carving.

The only iron tools, or rather bits of iron, seen amongst them, and which they had before our arrival, were a piece of iron hoop, about two inches long, fitted into a wooden handle;[2] and another edge-tool, which our people guessed to be made of the point of a broad-sword.  Their having the actual possession of these, and their so generally knowing the use of this metal, inclined some on board to think that we had not been the first European visitors of these islands.  But it seems to me, that the very great surprise expressed by them on seeing our ships, and their total ignorance of the use of fire-arms, cannot be reconciled with such a notion.  There are many ways by which such people may get pieces of iron, or acquire the knowledge of the existence of such a metal, without having ever had an immediate connection with nations that use it.  It can hardly be doubted, that it was unknown to all the inhabitants of this sea, before Magalhaens led the way into it; for no discoverer, immediately after his voyage, ever found any of this metal in their possession; though, in the course of our late voyages, it has been observed, that the use of it was known at several islands, to which no former European ships had ever, as far as we know, found their way.  At all the places where Mendana touched in his two voyages, it must have been seen and left; and this would extend the knowledge of it, no doubt, to all the various islands with which those whom he had visited had any immediate intercourse.  It might even be carried farther; and where specimens of this favourite article could not be procured, descriptions might, in some measure, serve to make it known when afterward seen.  The next voyage to the southward of the Line, in which any intercourse was had with the natives of this ocean, was that of Quiros, who landed at Sagittaria, the Island of Handsome People, and at Tierra del Espiritu Santo; at all which places, and at those with whom they had any communication, it must of consequence have been made known.  To him succeeded, in this navigation, Le Maire and Schouten, whose connections with the natives commenced