greens, on a spot very remote from that where their comrades suffered,
were unawares attacked by a party of Indians, and before they could
effect their escape, one of them was pierced by a spear in the hip,
after which they knocked him down, and plundered his cloaths. The poor
wretch, though dreadfully wounded, made shift to crawl off, but his
companion was carried away by these barbarians, and his fate doubtful,
until a soldier, a few days afterwards, picked up his jacket and hat
in a native's hut, the latter pierced through by a spear. We have found
that these spears are not made invariably alike, some of them being
barbed like a fish gig, and others simply pointed. In repairing them
they are no less dexterous than in throwing them. A broken one
being given by a gentleman to an Indian, he instantly snatched up an
oyster-shell, and converted it with his teeth into a tool with which
he presently fashioned the spear, and rendered it fit for use: in
performing this operation, the sole of his foot served him as a
work-board. Nor are their weapons of offence confined to the spear only,
for they have besides long wooden swords, shaped like a sabre, capable
of inflicting a mortal wound, and clubs of an immense size. Small
targets, made of the bark of trees, are likewise now and then to be seen
among them.

From circumstances which have been observed, we have sometimes been
inclined to believe these people at war with each other. They have more
than once been seen assembled, as if bent on an expedition. An officer
one day met fourteen of them marching along in a regular Indian file
through the woods, each man armed with a spear in his right hand, and
a large stone in his left: at their head appeared a chief, who was
distinguished by being painted. Though in the proportion of five to one
of our people they passed peaceably on.