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spaces were reached, evidently known rest camps, where we halted ten 
minutes to rest the carriers. 
After a tedious climb up the flanks of the spurs, clothed in high forest, 
one emerges on to cleared narrow ridges, covered with long grass, showing 
the first signs of cultivation, where a beautiful view opens out, on the 
one side to the blue island-dotted waters of Geelvink Bay over the 
foot-hills and the flat inundation-belt just passed through, which spreads 
out like a green table, and on the other side across the Momi valley to the 
central mountain range with its many outlying spurs. After more climbing, 
bamboo thickets evidently planted, with the magic plant of Malaya, Justicia 
Gandarussa, never known to set seed, further confirm the impression of man’s 
vicinity. Fine forest succeeded these abandoned gardens, from which we 
emerged on to old “kebuns” on the broad crest of the lower Serao range. 
Here were the Serao houses, surrounded by present cultivation, where 
we were very well received by the korano and _ his charming wife, the 
prettiest Papuan woman seen, though many are nice-looking. 
The Serao people—great friends of Manao’s—cordially invited me to 
sleep in their house ; but as all the Papuans with the Japanese streamed in, 
to say nothing of the original inhabitants, I decided to camp outside in a 
newly made “ kebun,” with the “ Pradjoerit” and “ Orang ranté.” 
The korano’s house was very large, with split-bamboo flooring and a few 
small partitions, while against each side a narrow strip was thickly sanded 
over for fires. Opposite the entrance a second door opened on to a balcony, 
commanding a lovely view over the dip of the ridge to the immediate Momi 
valley and the further spurs of the Arfak. A house inhabited by a head- 
hunting tribe was pointed out on the slopes below. 
Native Plantations. 
In the “kebuns ” the luxuriance of the crops and method in cultivation 
is surprising. Sweet potatoes of very fine quality, gourds, plantains ete., 
and papayas, the latter replaced by maize and tobacco as the altitude 
increases, with some of the finest sugar-cane I have seen, are planted, 
the standing crops in diagonals alternately, with sweet potatoes and gourds, 
chiefly Lagenaria hispida, as undercrops. 
Some of these plantations were situated on the steepest slopes, where, 
toiling up in the pitiless sun, one sinks to one’s knees in fine deep soil. 
Fortunately there are always many logs lying in succession as they were 
felled, which facilitate the ascent. 
The plantations or gardens are surrounded by a strong double stockade 
against wild pig, with notched poles slanting both ways at certain points for 
ingress and egress. One or two communal houses are generally built in the 
middle of the plantation, eack on a maze of criss-crossed poles, about 20 
from the ground, with a veranda back and front, approached by a notched 
02 
