AND OliSEKVED AT THE ADMIRALTY ISLANDS. 81 



found growing at Am on a large forest-tree. (Specimens of all 

 these fruits are sent in the collection.) 



The natives have also a sugar-cane much larger and finer than 

 that of the Papuans at Humboldt Bay. The ripe canes were 6 

 feet long and 1| inch in diameter. They were heavy ; but did 

 not, of course, contain as much sugar as West-Indian canes. 



The natives chew betel, using the betel-pepper, Areca-nut, and 

 coral-lime, or chunam, as usual, together. (The natives of the 

 Louisiade use the Areca-nut and chunam only, and have no betel- 

 pepper — Macgillivray, ' Voyage of the c Rattlesnake,' ' vol. i. 

 p. 222.) One or two natives only were observed who did not 

 use betel. Nearly all use it to excess. I did not see the betel- 

 pepper growing, but only saw it in use. The chunam is car- 

 ried, as at Humboldt Bay, in long gourds perforated at one 

 end to receive the long stick or spoon with which the lime is 

 carried to the mouth. The gourd here in use is different in form 

 from either of the two forms in use at Humboldt Bay. The use 

 of tobacco is unknown to the natives, as is also that of kaava. 



The women wear as their only clothes two bunches of a grass, 

 apparently — one in front, the other behind. The men wear occa- 

 sionally a narrow strip of bark cloth about 5 feet long and 6 or 8 

 inches in breadth, which is almost white when new and clean. 

 The cloth is in the form of a long natural sac open at both 

 ends, being evidently loosened from the cut limb of the tree from 

 which it is made by beating, and then drawn off entire. This 

 cloth is sometimes reddened by being rubbed with a red earth 

 used by the natives for smearing their bodies, No better native 

 cloth was seen ; and the natives apparently do not know the 

 method of fusing the fibrous matter from several pieces of bark 

 together, so as. to form taffa like that of Fiji or Tonga. I saw 

 no articles of ornament or clothing here made of a Rhizomorpha, 



t 



as occurs at Fiji and Humboldt Bay. 



Very neat armlets and waistbelts, of mixed yellow and black 

 fibres plaited together, are made by the natives ; and excellent 

 bags are made of a fine plaited mat-work. 



The seeds of Coix Lachryma are used as beads, as they are by so 

 many other savages, and are also used as ornaments to the 

 obsidian-headed spears, the native's chief weapon — being lashed 

 round the necks of the spears just below the heads, so as to 

 form four or more longitudinal rows. A dry double ovoid fruit 

 is worn sometimes in the huge slit in the ear as an ornament, 



