MY FIRST EXPEDITION TO NEW GUINEA 45 



At Fergusson Island I picked upon a spot near the 

 village of Nadi as my first camping-ground. There 

 was there a Kanaka named Harry, who had been 

 employed on the Queensland sugar plantations and 

 knew how to speak English. He was a New Hebrides 

 boy and was engaged in trading in copra. He proved 

 to be very obliging and helped me considerably with 

 the natives. In a very short while there was put up 

 a fine house for us in the native style, with a broad 

 deep verandah. This I made my headquarters, and 

 from there sent my men out collecting. I had my 

 three white assistants, and the natives also brought 

 in great quantities of beetles and birds and also some 

 mammals. 



Our native house was built of saplings with a roof 

 of matted sago palm leaves. A native house of that 

 sort is very comfortable and will last, say, six or 

 twelve months. Then the weevil gets into the sago 

 leaves and eats the roof away, and the white ant 

 attacks the timber, and your house very quickly 

 crumbles. When the natives are building houses for 

 themselves they can often make them so that they 

 will last some five years, by matting the leaves very 

 thickly and building the roofs with a very high pitch. 

 Also they keep fires going constantly in the houses, 

 and the smoke percolating through keeps down the 

 ravages of insects. 



There is a great diversity of opinion among white 

 residents in New Guinea regarding the advantages 



