132 A COLLECTING TRIP 
door so small that I had to crawl on my hands and 
knees to enter. At Humboldt’s bay we were not per- 
mitted to go into the temple. They said they would 
kill us, Katherina and me, should we go, so we na- 
turally did not. The men, Tom, Mr. Pim and Mr. 
Shearing and the officers of the ship all went in, how- 
ever, and left us outside. As soon as they had all gone 
the Papuans entreated us to follow, but we declined. 
Once was quite enough. You never saw such birds of 
paradise as they had for exchange, simply superb, but 
they would take only a certain kind of shell bracelet, 
which we did not have. For one of these miserable 
bracelets you could get three very beautiful birds. The 
Chinamen on board traded left and right and secured 
over four thousand. The two French parasols were 
very taking and we obtained many interesting things 
in exchange for them. 
The scenery along the New Guinea coast is simp- 
ly superb, huge mountains ten thousand feet and over 
rising sheer out of the water; they are covered with 
forests of splendid vegetation right down to the 
water’s edge. We have all been in the best of health 
and spirits. We had in all only about a week of rough 
weather, a most excellent record when you think that 
we have been on this boat seven weeks next Thursday. 
We have added two more animals to our collection of 
pets, a kangaroo, very pretty and as tame as a dog. 
Tom takes him out for exercise on deck and sits him 
on his lap. We also have a cockatoo, which we got at 
Wahai Ceram, pure white with a salmon pink crest; 
he is a beauty and he has a very cunning trick of danc- 
ing. Polly is sweet; she sleeps in a little box at night, 
just like a eat, with a piece of muslin over her. 
