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Formed of large sheets of birch-bark, kept in shape by delicate ribs of lance-wood or willow, it was nearly forty feet in length, and sharp at both ends; and the seams where the bark was sewn together were covered by a thick resinous gum, which became hard in the water. Like the small canoes, it required careful handling; for, having no keel, it was easily turned over.
For negligence, they are usually whipped by the overseers with lance-wood switches. After they are whipped till they are raw, some put on their skins pepper and salt, to make them smart; at other times, their masters will drop melted wax on their skins, and use several very exquisite torments."
It tried to dash away when it saw the mounted men, but the effort was too much for it. It fell over, tried to get up but couldn't, and lay in the sand, panting and moaning with pain. The point of a spear was sticking in its side just behind the shoulder-blade. Yarloo pulled it out and looked at it. The shaft, which had broken off about a foot from the end was made of lance-wood.
There are a few pines in this bush, but not many. I can give you no idea of the variety among the shrubs: the koromika, like an Alpine rose, a compact ball of foliage; the lance-wood, a tall, slender stem, straight as a line, with a few long leaves at the top, turned downwards like the barb of a spear, and looking exactly like a lance stuck into the ground; the varieties of matapo, a beautiful shrub, each leaf a study, with its delicate tracery of black veins on a yellow-green ground; the mappo, the gohi, and many others, any of which would be the glory of an English shrubbery: but they seem to require the deep shelter of their native Bush, for they never flourish when transplanted.
Guy only staid to take a short lance-wood club, headed with a spiked steel head, which was his constant traveling companion a very simple weapon, but deadly in his hands as the axe of Richard the King and then we sallied out, taking our servants and some other men that were below, with torches, in case the moon should fail us unexpectedly.
For negligence, they are usually whipped by the overseers with lance-wood switches, till they be bloody, and several of the switches broken, being first tied up by their hands in the mill houses.
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