Their weapons are clubs, spears, and bows and arrows. The two former are made of hard or iron wood. Their bows are about four feet long, made of a stick split down the middle, and are not circular, but in this form. [Illustration] The arrows, which are a sort of reeds, are sometimes armed with a long and sharp point, made of the hard wood, and sometimes with a very hard point made of bone; and these points are all covered with a substance which we took for poison. Indeed, the people themselves confirmed our suspicions, by making signs to us not to touch the point, and giving us to understand, that if we were pricked by them we should die. They are very careful of them themselves, and keep them always wrapped up in a quiver. Some of these arrows are armed with two or three points, each with small prickles on the edges, to prevent the arrow being drawn out of the wound. The people of Mallicollo seemed to be a quite different nation from any we had yet met with, and speak a different language. Of about eighty words which Mr. Forster collected, hardly one bears any affinity to the language spoken at any other island or place I had ever been at. The letter R is used in many of their words; and frequently two or three being joined together, such words we found difficult to pronounce. I observed that they could pronounce most of our words with great ease. They express their admiration by hissing like a goose. To judge of the country by the little we saw of it, it must be fertile; but I believe their fruits are not so good as those of the Society or Friendly Isles. Their cocoa-nut trees, I am certain, are not; and their bread-fruit and plantains did not seem much better. But their yams appeared to be very good. We saw no other animals than those I have already mentioned. They have not so much as a name for a dog, and consequently have none; for which reason we left them a dog and a bitch; and there is no doubt they will be taken care of, as they were very fond of them. After we had got to sea, we tried what effect one of the poisoned arrows would have on a dog. Indeed we had tried it in the harbour the very first night, but we thought the operation had been too slight, as it had no effect. The surgeon now made a deep incision in the dog’s thigh, into which he laid a large portion of the poison just as it was scraped from the arrows, and then bound up the wound with a bandage. For several days after, we thought the dog was not so well as he had been before; but whether this was really so, or only suggested by imagination, I know not. He was afterwards as if nothing had been done to him, and lived to be brought home to England. However, I have no doubt of this stuff being of a poisonous quality, as it could answer no other purpose. The people seemed not unacquainted with the nature of poison; for when they brought us water on shore, they first tasted it, and then gave us to understand we might with safety drink it.