We slept in the hold of the ‘Daylight’ that night, after making all arrangements for a start at early dawn.  We trusted that the Cleveland Bay party would have performed their portion of the task, and thoroughly overhauled the southern part of the island, and fully expected to fall in with them on the following day.

Our road lay through most abominable country —­ stony, precipitous, and in places covered with dense vegetation.  The traces of blacks were abundant, and we could travel but a short distance without falling in with some of the numerous camping-places.  In many of these, the fires were still smouldering, but the inhabitants had cleared out, most probably warned by those whom the whale-boat had intercepted.  Each camp was subjected to a rigid scrutiny, but without revealing anything European, except fragments of bottles, to which we attached no importance, for they were probably flung over-board by some passing vessel, and carried ashore by the tide.  These are highly valued by the blacks, who do not use them for carrying water, but break them, and scrape down their spears with the fragments.

To make a spear must be a work of many weeks’ duration, when the imperfect implements at the natives’ disposal are taken into consideration.  In the first place, his missile must be perfectly straight, and of the hardest wood; and no bough, however large, would fulfil these requirements, so it must be cut out bodily from the stem of an iron-bark tree, and the nearer the heart he can manage to get, the better will be his weapon.  His sole tool with which to attack a giant iron-bark is a miserable tomahawk, or hatchet, made of stone, but little superior to the rude Celtic flint axe-heads, that may be seen in any antiquarian’s collection.  These are of a very hard stone, frequently of a greenish hue, and resembling jade; and, having been rubbed smooth, are fitted with a handle on the same principle that a blacksmith in England twists a hazel wand round a cold chisel.  The head, and the portion of the handle which embraces it, then receive a plentiful coating of bees’-wax, and the weapon is ready for use.  Fancy having to chop out a solid piece of wood, nine feet long, and of considerable depth, from a standing tree, with an instrument such as I have described, which can never, by any possibility be brought to take an edge!  I have frequently examined the trees from which spears have been thus excised, and the smallness of the chips testified to the length of the tedious operation; indeed, it would be more correct to say the segment had been bruised out than excised.  Having so far achieved his task, there is still a great deal before the black can boast of a complete spear, for the bar is several inches in diameter, and has to be fitted down to less than one inch.  Of the use of wedges he knows nothing, so is compelled to work away with the tomahawk, and to call in the aid of fire; and when he has managed to reduce the spear to something approaching its proper size, he gets a lot of oyster-shells, and with them completes the scraping, and puts on the finishing touches.  It may easily be imagined what a boon glass must be to the savage, enabling him to do the latter part of the operation in a tithe of the time.