360 A NATURALIST ON THE "CHALLENGER." 



ing expedition, in order to come upon the birds about daybreak, 

 which is always the best time for finding them in the tropics, 

 I went to the camp of the Blacks to fetch Longway, just as 

 it was beginning to dawn. The Blacks were not by any means 

 so easily roused as I had expected ; I found them all asleep, and 

 had to shout at them, but then they all started up scared, as if 

 expecting an attack. I had great difficulty in persuading Long- 

 way to go with me at that early hour, and he complained of the 

 cold for some hours. I think the Blacks usually lie in camp 

 till the sun has been up some little time, and the air has been 

 warmed. 



With regard to expression, I noticed that the Gudangs used 

 the same gesture of refusal or dissent as the Api men, namely, 

 the shrugging of one shoulder, with the head bent over to the 

 same side. Their facial expressions were, as far as I saw them, 

 normal, I mean like those of Europeans. 



Altogether, these Blacks are, I suppose, nearly as low as any 

 savages. They have no clothes (some have bits of European 

 ones now) no canoes, no hatchets, no boomerangs, no chiefs. 

 Their graves, described in the " Voyage of the 'Fly,'" are remark- 

 able in their form. They are long low mounds of sand, with a 

 wooden post set up at each of the corners. There is far more 

 trouble taken with them than would be expected. 



The beach at Somerset is composed of siliceous sand. One 

 becomes so accustomed when amongst coral islands, to see the 

 beaches made up of calcareous sand, that it appears quite a 

 novel feature when one meets again with siliceous sand, to 

 which only we are accustomed in Europe. The sandy beach 

 slopes down, to end abruptly on a nearly horizontal mud flat, 

 bare at low water, which is mainly calcareous, and in fact a 

 shore platform reef, but with few living corals on it. At low 

 water, during spring tides, blocks of dead massive corals, such 

 as Astrceiclm are seen to compose the verge of these mud flats, 

 and it is from the detritus of these that the mud is formed. 

 Amongst these blocks are but few living corals, a species of 

 Euphyllia, small Astrccas, and cup or mushroom-shaped 

 Turbinarias. 



There is a considerable variety of species of seaweeds on the 



