ARE VISITED BY NATIVES. 05 



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 alongside in their usual 

 boisterous manner. A few words of their language 

 which were procured proved to be of great interest 

 by agreeing generally with those formerly obtained 

 at Brierly Island^ while the numerals were quite 

 different and corresponded somewhat with those of 

 my Brumer Island yocabular3\ Two of the canoes — 

 one of which carried sixteen people — were large and 

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

 and fetching- under the ship's stern. In these large 

 canoes the paddles are of proportionate size and 

 ver}^ clums}^, — they are worked as oars with the aid 

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

 shape formerly described. One of the canoes was 

 furnished with a small stage 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. 



Although rather a better sample of the Papuan 

 race than that which we had lately seen at Redscar 

 Bay, there was no marked physical distinction be- 

 tween these inhabitants of the Louisiade and the New 

 Guinea men. The canoes, however, are as different 

 as the language ; here, as throughout the Archi- 

 pelago, the canoes have the semblance of a narrow 



VOL. II. F 



