510 New Guinea. 



buy them, and on their return home sell them to the Bugis or 

 Ternate traders. It is therefore hopeless for a traveller to go 

 to any particular place on the coast of New Guinea where 

 rare paradise birds may have been bought, in hopes of obtain- 

 ing freshly killed specimens from the natives ; and it also 

 shows the scarcity of these birds in any one locality, since 

 from the Amberbaki district, a celebrated place, where at least 

 five or six species have been procured, not one of the rarer 

 ones has been obtained this year. The Prince of Tidore, who 

 would certainly have got them if any were to be had, was 

 obliged to put up with a few of the common yellow ones. I 

 think it probable that a longer residence at Dorey, a little 

 farther in the interior, might show that several of the rarer 

 kinds were found there, as I obtained a single female of the 

 fine scale-breasted Ptiloris magnificus. I was told at Ternate 

 of a bird that is certainly not yet known in Europe, a black 

 King Paradise Bird, with the curled tail and beautiful side- 

 plumes of the common species, but all the rest of the plumage 

 glossy black. The people of Dorey knew nothing about this, 

 although they recognized by description most of the other 

 species. 



When the steamer left, I was suffering from a severe attack 

 of fever. In about a week I got over this, but it was followed 

 by such a soreness of the whole inside of the movith, tongue, 

 and gums, that for many days I could put nothing solid be- 

 tween my lips, but was obliged to subsist entirely on slops, al- 

 though in other respects veiy well. At the same time two of 

 my men again fell ill, one with fever, the other with dysen- 

 tery, and both got very bad. I did what I could for them 

 with ray small stock of medicines, but they lingered on for 

 some weeks, till on June 26th poor Jumaat died. He was 

 about eighteen years of age, a native, I believe, of Bouton, and 

 a quiet lad, not very active, but doing his work pretty steadi- 

 ly, and as well as he Avas able. As my men were all Moham- 

 medans, I let them bury him in their own fashion, giving them 

 some new cotton cloth for a shroud. 



On July 6th the steamer returned from the eastward. The 

 weather was still terribly wet, when, according to rule, it 

 should have been fine and dry. "We had scarcely any thing 

 to eat, and were all of us ill. Fevers, colds, and dysentery 



