NEW BRITAIN AND ITS PEOPLE. 617 



inner room generally contains shell money unci any valuables. 

 Many of them are made by first erecting two parallel bars of 

 the required height and distance apart. Strips of bamboo, 

 reeds, or light branches of trees are used as rafters, one end of 

 which is firmly fixed in the earth, and the top ends are bent 

 over the two parallel bars and tied at the ridge. Battens are 

 then tied across the raftei's, and the Avhole, from the ridge to 

 the ground, thatched with grass, which is not tied down as in 

 Fiji and other ]jlaces, but twisted in between the battens as 

 shown by the accompanying rough sketch. It is the work of 

 the women to gather the grass and bring it in, and the men 

 thatch. The door is very narrow, so that a man has difficulty 

 in passing through, and this constitutes a measure of protection. 

 Around the sides of the interior of the house we fi-equently 

 find wood stacked and tied, which serves the purpose of 

 armour plating, and defends the sleeper or inmates from spear 

 thrusts. Sj)ears are kept handy in the ridge of the house, 

 and other weapons are kept ready to hand. The house or 

 houses forming the family group are surrounded by a fence 

 made of the hal bal, a plant the branches of which readily 

 take root in the ground. These are planted close together, 

 and are made firm by tying strips of bamboo all along the 

 row of ]>lants. This forms a tolerably secure fence. Some 

 of the houses are built with s((uare sides and roof, as with us. 

 The sides are made of plaited cocoa-nut leaves, or pickets 

 made of bamboo or reeds ; in the latter case they are decorated 

 with considerable taste by a rather harmonious blending of 

 their three colours, red, white, and blue. 



In regard to house comforts and utensils the people are 

 very poorly provided. They have no notion of pottery, their 

 mats are of the ))Oorest and roughest description, and they 

 usually sleej) with this poor apology for a mat under them 

 upon the ground. In New Ireland we find them sleeping 

 upon great slabs of wood, which is a decided improvement. 

 Cocoa-nut shells, with long pieces of bamboo, are used as 

 water-bottles, and to these must be added the water-bag 

 made out of the banana leaf, toughened and make flexible by 

 passing it over a fire. The possession of glass bottles is now 

 becoming universal, and they are prized by the people. I 

 have only seen one bowl made of wood, and that came from 

 a distance. Knives were unknown until introduced by 

 Europeans, stri))s of bamboo being used, and it is a disgusting 

 sight to witness the dismemberment of a pig with these 

 primitive knives. Prior to the introduction of tins and pots 



