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Breakfast being over, I sent the overseer and one native to the beach, to try to get a sting-ray, and to the other I gave my gun to shoot wallabie: no fish was procured, but one wallabie was got, half of which I gave to the native who killed it, for his dinner.
Their tools were few and rude: an adze of stone, a chisel or gouge of bone generally that of a man's arm between the wrist and elbow a rasp of coral, and the sting of a sting-ray, with coral sand as a file or polisher. With these tools they built their houses and canoes, hewed stone, and felled, clove, carved, and polished timber.
Their adzes and axes were of stone. The gouge most commonly used by them was made out of the bone of the human forearm. Their substitute for a knife was a shell, or a bit of flint or jasper. A shark's tooth, fixed to a piece of wood, served for an auger; a piece of coral for a file; and the skin of a sting-ray for a polisher.
They looked like ravenous wolves about their prey, and when they returned to the camp at night, they were loaded with as much cooked meat as they could carry, and which they were continually eating during the night; I made a meal upon some of the sting-ray that was still left, but it made me dreadfully sick, and I was obliged to lie down, seriously ill. April 17.
By the light of the fire, I threw out saddles, clothes, oil-skins, etc. that we did not absolutely require, and packing up the remainder, weighed a bundle of thirty-two pounds for myself to carry, and one of twenty-two for the native, who also had a gun to take. Our arrangements being completed for the morrow, we enjoyed our supper of sting-ray, and lay down for the night. April 12.
Waded with spear all over flats for rays. Did not get a shot at any. Very short commons. May 23. I miss the tea and tobacco. Dug last row of sweet spuds. Very patchy in size, but a perfect God-send just now. May 26. Last kerosene. No reading at nights now. He records catching a sting-ray and getting oysters. June 2. Not a sign of a ray. Have to live off potatoes a bit.
At these times a species of sting-ray is common on the sloping beach, and bathers are frequently stung most severely by it. The weapon of this fish is a strong blade with jagged edges, about three inches long, growing from the side of the long fleshy tail.
The whole apparatus is supplied with nerves which run through the entire length of the body. A fresh-water species of sting-ray is an inhabitant of the creeks and lagoons of stagnant water; and so infested are some of them with the creatures, that it is almost certain destruction to venture into them.
There were now plenty of sting-ray fish along the beach again, and I was desirous, if possible, to get one for a change of diet; my friend, however, had so much to eat, that though he said he should like fish too, I could not get him to go about a mile to the back of the sand-hills, to cut a stick from the scrub, to make a spear for catching them. May 13.
Being determined to break up camp on the 27th, I sent the King George's Sound native on a-head, as soon as he had breakfasted, that, by preceding the party, he might have time to spear a sting-ray against we overtook him. The day was dull, cloudy, and warm, and still looking likely for rain, with the wind at north-east.
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