To Waigiou. 525 



on the course that the ever-changing wind would allow us (our 

 hands being too few to row any distance), our prospects of 

 getting to our destination seemed rather remote and precari- 

 ous. Having gone to the eastern extremity of the deep bay 

 we had entered, without finding any sign of an opening, we 

 turned westward ; and toward evening were so fortunate as 

 to find a small village of seven miserable houses built on piles 

 in the water. Luckily the orang-kaya, or head-man, could 

 speak a little Malay, and informed us that the entrance to the 

 s.trait was really in the bay we had examined, but that it was 

 no-t to be seen except when close inshore. He said the strait 

 was often very narrow, and wound among lakes and rocks and 

 islands, and that it would take two days to reach the large 

 village of Muka, and three more to get to Waigiou. I suc- 

 ceeded in hiring two men to go with us to Muka, bringing a 

 small boat in which to return ; but we had to wait a day for 

 our guides, so I took my gun and made a little excursion into 

 the forest. The day was wet and drizzly, and I only succeed- 

 ed in shooting two small birds, but I saw the great black 

 cockatoo, and had a glimpse of one or two birds of paradise, 

 whose loud screams we had heard on first approaching the 

 coast. 



Leaving the village the next morning (July 1st) with a 

 light wind, it took us all day to reach the entrance to the chan- 

 nel, which resembled a small river, and was concealed by a 

 projecting point, so that it was no wonder we did not discover 

 it amid the dense forest vegetation which everywhere covers 

 these islands to the water's edge. A little way inside it be- 

 comes bounded by precipitous rocks, after winding among 

 which for about two miles, we emerged into what seemed a 

 lake, but which was in fact a deep gulf having a narrow en- 

 trance on the south coast. This gulf was studded along its 

 shores with numbers of rocky islets, mostly mushroom shaped, 

 from the water having worn away the lower part of the solu- 

 ble coralline limestone, leaving them overhanging from ten to 

 twenty feet. Every islet was covered with strange-looking 

 shrubs and trees, and was generally crowned by lofty and ele- 

 gant palms, which also studded the ridges of the mountainous 

 shores, forming one of the most singular and picturesque land- 

 scapes I have ever seen. The current Avhich had brought us 



