NEW GUINEA AND ITS PEOPLE. 329 



the end of one monsoon to go to their destination, waiting the setting 

 in of the other to return. Farther to the east the style of the canoes 

 improves. At Orangerie Bay they art' adorned with elegant and 

 elaborate earrings, and are often very well shaped, with scats for as 

 many as eighteen paddlers. Sometimes two or three are lashed to- 

 gether, while the captain sits on a raised deck between them. The 

 war-canoes of this kind are elaborately ornamented with carved figure- 

 heads, painted black and white, and decorated with many streamers. 

 The women can paddle their canoes quite as well as the men ; and I 

 have seen a double canoe, propelled by twenty-four women, flying over 

 the water, the women keeping perfect time with their paddles. 



The people are still in the stone age, for iron and its uses are un- 

 known among them. They are all gardeners, and cultivate the soil 

 carefully, with a set of agricultural implements consisting of two 

 pointed sticks, which serve them for plow and harrow, spade and rake. 

 One stick is inserted five or six inches into the soil, and then the other 

 at an angle with it ; with the leverage thus obtained a sod is turned, 

 and, this being clone in regular order, a field looks, when finished, 

 almost as if it had been plowed. Bananas are planted in these fur- 

 rowed gardens. In other cases the large sods are broken up, the weeds 

 picked out, and the whole smoothed over by the stick, until it has 

 the appearance of a well-raked, carefully cultivated English garden. 

 The men do the heavier work of digging, while the women plant and 

 weed. All their gardens are inclosed by well-made fences. 



Hunting the wild-pig and kangaroo are favorite sports. With no 

 other weapon than a smooth-pointed spear and a coarse net, they ob- 

 tain enormous quantities of kangaroo-meat. All the men and boys 

 join in the grand hunts. A tract of land is selected on a clay when the 

 trade-wind is blowing steady and strong. The hunters pull up the dry 

 grass in a narrow belt to leeward, and place their nets along the strip, 

 each man's net being joined to his neighbor's, so that a continuous 

 fence of nets is formed across one side of the hunting-ground. The 

 men stand behind this barrier, with their spears and dogs, and the 

 grass is set fire to all along the line to windward. The animals are 

 driven, by the fire and smoke and boys, up to the nets, where their 

 chances for escape are very small. The fishing is all done with nets. 



The people have no metallic vessels, or ovens of any kind. Most 

 of the food is boiled, and, before it can be cooked, the women have to 

 make the pot to boil it in. They make very good pottery, which is 

 slightly burned after being dried in the sun. They use no wheel, and 

 yet they make well-shaped globular vessels. Roasting over a slow lire 

 is also often practiced, and the South-Sea Island mode of cooking with 

 hot stones is employed by the inland tribes. All the food is well 

 cooked ; and they look upon us as barbarous for eating our meat, as 

 they say, half raw. This does away altogether with the idea of gnaw - 

 ing and tearing which we generally associate with eating without 



