ARE VISITED BY NATIVES. G5 



in five canoes came over from the Calvados Group, 

 and first attracted our attention by making* several 

 fires on the middle and easternmost islands. Soon 

 after daybreak they came along-side in their usual 

 boisterous manner. A few words of their lano-uao'e 

 which were procured proved to be of g-reat interest 

 by ag-reeing* g-enerally with those formerly obtained 

 at Brierly Island, while the numerals were quite 

 different and corresponded somewhat with those of 

 my Brumer Island vocabular}^ Two of the canoes — 

 one of which carried sixteen people — were larg-e and 

 heavy and came off under sail, tacking* outside of us 

 and fetching* under the ship's stern. In these larg*e 

 canoes the j^addles are of proportionate size and 

 very clumsy, — they are worked as oars with the aid 

 of cane gromets, — the sail is of the large oblong* 

 shape formerty described. One of the canoes was 

 furnished with a small stag*e above the platform for 

 the reception of a larg*e bundle of coarse mats, six 

 feet long* and two-and-a-half broad, made by inter- 

 lacing* the leaflets of the cocoa-palm; these mats 

 are probably used in the construction of temporary 

 huts when upon a cruise. 



Althoug'h rather a better sample of the Papuan 

 race than that which we had lately seen at Redscar 

 Bay, there was no marked ph3^sical distinction be- 

 tween these inhabitants of the Louisiade and the New 

 Guinea men. The canoes, however, are as difterent 

 as the language ; here, as throughout the Archi- 

 pelago, the canoes have the semblance of a narrow 



VOL. II. F 



