50 Naturalist at Large 



wary's thighbone or a human thighbone, chipped to a 

 point. Many carried stone axes, and almost all had bows 

 and bundles of arrows. We photographed their arrow re- 

 lease for Professor E. S. Morse, who was studying the 

 evolution of archery. In their noses they wore the tusks of 

 wild boars, one pushed up through the nostril and through 

 a hole pierced in the side of the nose on each side, a sort 

 of glorified Kaiser's mustache, quite striking when seen 

 from a distance. They wore their hair in great, luxuriant 

 mops, with a comb stuck in it. This was made from the 

 spiny, coarse wing feathers of the cassowary and was used 

 to keep the hair fluffed out symmetrically. They not in- 

 frequently wore a band around their brows decorated with 

 hibiscus or other flowers. They either wore no clothes at 

 all or bizarrely shaped little gourds decorated with patterns 

 burned on them, in which a small round hole was cut. All 

 in all, they were highly satisfactory savages and looked 

 just as they should have. 



Rosamond and I have been to the Island of Amboina 

 twice, for the Both stopped there for several days on the 

 way to New Guinea and on the return voyage. We went 

 out to Batu Gadja to see the tomb of old Rumphius,^ whose 



^For anyone who may be interested, I can recommend 

 Professor George Sarton's fascinating biographical sketch of 

 Rumphius, who went to Java in 1653 and to Amboina the next 

 year. His drawings were lost there in a disastrous fire on Janu- 

 ary 1 1, 1687, but his manuscript was saved. Luckily, Governor 

 General Camphuys had this copied before he sent it to Holland, 

 since the ship Waterla?zd, carrying the original manuscript to 

 the homeland, was sunk by the French. Rumphius continued 

 his work until May 1670, when he completely lost his eyesight. 



