tools. They polish their stones by constant friction, with
pumice-stone in water; and such of their working instruments, or
tools, as I saw, resembled those of the Southern Islands. Their
hatchets, or rather adzes, were exactly of the same pattern, and
either made of the same sort of blackish stone, or of a clay-coloured
one. They have also little instruments, made of a single shark's
tooth, some of which are fixed to the fore-part of a dog's jawbone,
and others to a thin wooden handle of the same shape; and at the other
end there is a bit of string fastened through a small perforation.
These serve as knives occasionally, and are perhaps used in carving.

The only iron tools, or rather bits of iron, seen amongst them, and
which they had before our arrival, were a piece of iron hoop,
about two inches long, fitted into a wooden handle;[2] and another
edge-tool, which our people guessed to be made of the point of a
broad-sword. Their having the actual possession of these, and their
so generally knowing the use of this metal, inclined some on board
to think that we had not been the first European visitors of these
islands. But it seems to me, that the very great surprise expressed
by them on seeing our ships, and their total ignorance of the use of
fire-arms, cannot be reconciled with such a notion. There are many
ways by which such people may get pieces of iron, or acquire the
knowledge of the existence of such a metal, without having ever had
an immediate connection with nations that use it. It can hardly be
doubted, that it was unknown to all the inhabitants of this sea,
before Magalhaens led the way into it; for no discoverer, immediately
after his voyage, ever found any of this metal in their possession;
though, in the course of our late voyages, it has been observed,
that the use of it was known at several islands, to which no former
European ships had ever, as far as we know, found their way. At all
the places where Mendana touched in his two voyages, it must have been
seen and left; and this would extend the knowledge of it, no doubt, to
all the various islands with which those whom he had visited had any
immediate intercourse. It might even be carried farther; and
where specimens of this favourite article could not be procured,
descriptions might, in some measure, serve to make it known when
afterward seen. The next voyage to the southward of the Line, in which
any intercourse was had with the natives of this ocean