The reader will doubtless remark here that the travellers were so accustomed to associate fire with smoke that they believed themselves to have seen flashes of fire as well as wreaths of smoke issue from the strange weapon. Many years afterward, Lieutenant Modera contrived to see and handle some of these implements, and found that they were simply hollow bamboos, filled with a mixture of sand and wood-ashes, which could be flung like smoke-wreaths from the tubes. The Outanatas, their weapons, canoes and the remarkable instrument just described, are illustrated on the following page. Some persons have thought that the natives used these tubes in imitation of firearms, but the interpreters gave it as their opinion that they were employed as signals, the direction of the dust cloud being indicative of the intention of the thrower. Others say that the tubes are really weapons, made for the purpose of blinding their adversaries by flinging sand in their eyes. I cannot agree with this last suggestion, because the other weapons of the Outanatas show that the natives do not fight hand to hand like the New Zealanders. I think that the interpreters were right in their statement that the tubes are used for signalling, and this supposition is strengthened by the fact that the natives of Australia do use smoke for the same purpose, as has already been described. The canoes of the Outanatas are often of considerable size, measuring fifty or sixty feet, and, although narrow in proportion to their length from stem to stern, containing a great number of men. They are handsomely carved and adorned with paint, and both ends are flat and broad. The rowers stand up when they use their paddles, which are necessarily of considerable length, having long handles and oval blades slightly hollowed. The narrowness of these canoes strengthens the opinion of several travellers, that the Outanatas are really an inland tribe, descending the river in flotillas, and returning to their inland home when the object of their expedition is accomplished. They seem to be less suspicious than their countrymen of Dourga Strait, and have no hesitation in meeting Europeans and exchanging their own manufactures for cloth, knives, and glass bottles, the last mentioned objects being always favorite articles of barter with Polynesian savages, who employ them when entire for holding liquids, and, if they should unfortunately be broken, use the fragments for knives, lancets, points of weapons, and similar purposes. Lieutenant Modera describes the appearance of one of their flotillas as representing a perfect fair, the boats being laid closely together, and their decks crowded with natives laden with articles for barter.