Hitherto we have not been able to trace out the cause of this usage.

At first we supposed it to be peculiar to the married women, or those who had borne children; but this conclusion must have been erroneous, as we have no right to believe that celibacy prevails in any instance, and some of the oldest of the women are without this distinction; and girls of a very tender age are marked by it.
On first setting foot in the country, we were inclined to hold the spears of the natives very cheap.

Fatal experience has, however, convinced us, that the wound inflicted by this weapon is not a trivial one; and that the skill of the Indians in throwing it, is far from despicable.

Besides more than a dozen convicts who have unaccountably disappeared, we know that two, who were employed as rush cutters up the harbour, were (from what cause we are yet ignorant) most dreadfully mangled and butchered by the natives.

A spear had passed entirely through the thickest part of the body of one of them, though a very robust man, and the skull of the other was beaten in.