fod 
JOURNEY TO NEW GUINEA AND NEW BRITAIN. 793 
CHILDREN’S GAMES. 
One of the most interesting sights which I saw at Dobu was a 
game played by a number of girls. This game must usually, I 
think, occupy two or three hours ; but on the particular occasion 
it was a good deal abbreviated for my sake, but even then it 
occupied a long time. ‘The girls all sat ina circle and sang a few 
words very sweetly. Then one, who was the leader, pretended to 
strike each one with a knife in turn, and each girl said, as the 
pretended stroke was given, “That knife is blunt!” Then there 
- was the pretence made of sharpening the knife, accompanied with 
a descriptive song. After this all the circle joined hands, finger 
to finger, and a song was sung as each finger was loosened. All 
this occupied a long time, as the song had to be sung over and 
over again as each finger of every girl j in the circle was loosened. 
Then some went out who were supposed to be witches, seeking to 
kill one of the others; and there was a lot of singing, gesture 
language, and appropriate action until these witches were driven 
away; in fact, there was a regular scrimmage before this was 
finally accomplished. After this all the girls stood closely locked 
together to represent a bunch of bananas, One was snatched 
away at a time by a witch. The owner of the “ bananas” walked 
sey and, missing one, asked of the fool or silly person, who 
fo) 
yas supposed to watch, “ Who stole my banana?” The answer 
was given in each case, “I don’t know.” This went on till all 
the “ “bananas” (girls) were taken away. Then there was a great 
disturbance. The witches were found, driven aw ay, and the “girls 
rescued. Then there was a game illustrative of a wallaby hunt, 
and it was very amusing to see the way some of the girls imitated 
the hunted wallabies, skipping and jumping away from their 
pursuers. All these were accompanied with descriptive songs, 
which, unfortunately, I did not understand. 
All the islands of the d’Entrecasteaux Group have abundant 
evidence of volcanic action, but, as in New Britain, I found no 
lava streams. All the ejected matter is pumice, of which, indeed, 
most of the islands there consist. There are many boiling springs 
in the group, some of which, on Dobu and on Fergusson Island, 
we visited. We landed at Numanuma on the latter island, and 
after an hour’s good walking in the hot sun we reached the 
fumaroles. The first intimation of their proximity was a large 
stream of boiling water flowing to the coast. There were many 
boiling springs along its banks, some of them emitting only boiling 
water and others boiling mud. ‘Then, after receiving many 
cautions from our guides to follow them closely in single file and 
not to step out of the track, we went on to the Geysers. There 
were several of them, and the sight was very interesting. A 
