seen to extend from Cape York along the eastern coast as far south as
Fitzroy Island,* a distance of 500 miles. It essentially consists of a
hollowed-out log, a central platform, and an outrigger on each side. The
largest canoes which I have seen are those of the Murray and Darnley
Islanders, occasionally as much as sixty feet long; those of the
Australians are small, varying at Cape York between fifteen and thirty
feet in length. Even the Kowraregas have much finer canoes than their
neighbours on the mainland; one which I measured alongside the ship was
forty-five feet long and three and a half in greatest width, and could
carry with ease twenty-five people.

(*Footnote. At the latter place we found a small canoe with two
outriggers concealed on shore among some bushes. The bark canoes of
Rockingham Bay have already been described. About Whitsunday Passage the
canoes, also of bark, are larger and of neater construction: one which I
examined at the Cumberland Isles was made of three pieces of bark neatly
sewn together; it was six feet long and two and a half feet wide, sharp
at each end, with a wooden thwart near the stem and stern, and a cord
amidships to keep the sides from stretching. In the creeks and bays of
the now settled districts of New South Wales another kind of canoe was
once in general use. At Broken Bay, in August 1847, a singular couple of
aborigines whom I met upon a fishing excursion had a small canoe formed
of a single sheet of bark tied up at each end; on the floor of this they
were squatted, with the gunwale not more than six inches above the
water's edge. Yet this frail bark contained a fire, numbers of spears,
fishing lines and other gear. The woman was a character well known in
Sydney--Old Gooseberry--said to be old enough to have remembered Cook's
first visit to these shores.)

MODE OF CONSTRUCTING AND MANAGING THEM.