CAPE YORK. 357 



The bamboo pipes of Dairy mple Island are described as 

 having bowls made of smaller bamboo tubes instead of the leaf 

 cone. There are many such in museums. Possibly the leal' is 

 only a makeshift. The Dalrymple Islanders, however, sucked the 

 bamboo full of smoke from the large hole at the end instead of 

 Wowing. 



It is remarkable that the Southern Papuans should have 

 invented this peculiar method of smoking for themselves, since 

 there can be little doubt that they derived the idea of smoking 

 from the Malays, probably through the Northern and Western 

 Papuans. There seems no doubt that the habit of smoking, as 

 well as the tobacco plant, were first introduced into Java by the 

 Portuguese * and the habit and plant no doubt spread thence to 

 New Guinea. The Papuans at Humboldt Bay smoke their 

 tobacco in the form of cigarettes. 



No other property than that mentioned was to be seen about 

 the camp of the Gudangs, but on our asking for them, Longway 

 produced some small spears and a throwing stick, which were 

 hidden in the bush close by ; and a second lot of spears was 

 produced afterwards from a similar hiding-place. The Blacks 

 keep what property they have thus hidden away, just as a dog 

 hides his bone, and not in the camp ; hence it is impossible to 

 find out what they really have. I saw no knife or tomahawk. 

 No doubt the practice of thus hidiDg things away from the camp 

 has arisen from constant fear of surprise from hostile tribes. 



The Blacks feed on shell fish and on snails (a very large 

 Helix), and on snakes and grubs and such things, which are 

 hunted for by the women. The women go out into the woods 

 in a gang every day for the purpose of collecting food, and also 

 dig wild yam roots with a pointed stick hardened in the fire. 

 They have not got the perforated stone to weight their digging- 

 stick, and are thus behind the Bushmen of the Cape in this 

 matter. A staple article of food with these Blacks is afforded 

 by the large seeds of a Climbing Bean {Entada scandens), and 

 their only stone implements are a round flat-topped stone and 

 another long conical one, suitable to be grasped in the hands. 

 This is used as a pestle with which to pound these beans on the 

 * A. de Candolle, " Geographie Botanique," T. II, p. 850. 



