" They then seizing the sharp-cut stake of the wood of the olive
Thrust it into his eye, the while I standing ahove them,
Bored it into the hole : — as a shipwright boreth a timber,
Guiding the drill that his men below drive backward and forward,
Pulling the ends of the thong while the point runs round without
ceasing."

In modern India, butter-churns are worked with a cord in
this way, and the Brahmans still use a cord-drill in producing
the sacred fire, as will be more fully stated presently. Half-
way round the world, the same thing is found among the
Esquimaux. Davis (after whom Davis's Straits are named) de-
scribes in 1586 how a Greenlander " beganne to kindle a fire
in this maner : he tooke a piece of a board wherein was a
hole halfe thorow : into that hole he puts the end of a round
stick like unto a bedstaffe, wetting the end thereof in Trane,
and in fashion of a turner with a piece of lether, by his violent




Fig. 24.
motion doeth very speedily produce fire." 1 The cut, Fig. 24,
is taken from a drawing of the last century, representing two
Esquimaux making fire, one holding a cross-piece to keep the
spindle steady and force it well down to its bearing, while the

1 Hakluyt, vol. iii. p. 104.
FIRE, COOKING, AND VESSELS.
