Those who live on the sea-coast depend entirely on fish for their
sustenance; while the few who dwell in the woods subsist on such animals
as they can catch. The very great labour necessary for taking these
animals, and the scantiness of the supply, keep the wood natives in as
poor a condition as their brethren on the coast. It has been remarked,
that the natives who have been met with in the woods had longer arms and
legs than those who lived about us. This might proceed from their being
compelled to climb the trees after honey and the small animals which
resort to them, such as the flying squirrel and opossum, which they
effect by cutting with their stone hatchets notches in the bark of the
tree of a sufficient depth and size to receive the ball of the great toe.
The first notch being cut, the toe is placed in it; and while the left
arm embraces the tree, a second is cut at a convenient distance to
receive the other foot. By this method they ascend very quick, always
cutting with the right hand and clinging with the left, resting the whole
weight of the body on the ball of either foot.
In an excursion to the westward with a party, we passed a tree (of the
kind named by us the white gum, the bark of which is soft) that we judged
to be about one hundred and thirty feet in height, and which had been
notched by the natives at least eighty feet, before they attained the
first branch where it was likely they could meet with any reward for so
much toil.
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