Narrative of the surveying voyages of his majesty's ships Adventure and Beagle (vol.2): between the years 1826 and 1836 : describing their examination of the southern shores of South America, and the Beagles's circumnavigation of the globe

198 TRINIDAD NATIVES. seen on the water, and the size of their canoes was quite beyond anything hitherto noticed : they were near thirty feet in length and seven feet broad, with proportionate depth, being made of planks sewn together with strips of twisted bark and rushes : the bow and stern were flat, and nearly upright. Six round pieces of wood formed the thwarts, which were fastened to the gunwale by ropes of twisted rushes ; and there were six short oars on each side. These oars were about seven feet long, the blade being a flat piece of wood about sixteen inches in length, fastened to the handle by rush rope passed through two holes in the blade. Of such burthen were these boats (rather than canoes), that two men standing on one gunwale did not bring it down to the water. Each was steered by an old woman, who sat silently abaft ^vith a paddle. All the party were quite naked excepting the old women. " From one of the old women a small bag was obtained, in exchange for a shirt and some woollen stuff, which proved to contain white dust, feathers, parrots' heads, hawks' feet, white earth, and red ochre. One of the men had an old hatchet, and made signs that he wanted to sharpen it at our grindstone : of course we compKed with his request, and allowed a man and a young lad to come on boai'd for that purpose. The lad turned the stone, while the man held the axe ; and extremely well it was sharpened. The spears and slings were similar to those seen in other places. " Although these natives seemed to be remarkably well dis- posed, it was not quite pleasant to see thirty of them looking over the schooner's bulwark, while our boats were away and only five or six men left on board : however, they made no attempt to do any thing improper, and before sunset left us peaceably, striking up a song as they paddled away." Mr. Eynoe remarked, that in the neighbourhood of Easter Bay (Obstruction Sound), the country had much the appear- ance of English park scenery ; large clumps of trees growing straight and tall, with intervening spaces of clear ground co- vered with long grass. In this place he found great numbers of wigwams and deserted canoes. Some of the former were of i