48 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



At Nadi the fever troubled me more than at any 

 time since in New Guinea. I recollect during one 

 attack that I had the strange fancy that I was five 

 different people with five different personalities, all 

 doing different things at the same time. At one time 

 I seemed to be threatened with death. But in time 

 I got better, and afterwards I seemed to be some- 

 what hardened to the fever. 



During the time I was at Nadi I ate about the 

 same kinds of food that I was accustomed to in 

 Australia, using tinned provisions mostly; but the 

 natives supplemented those provisions with taro, 

 yams, sweet potatoes, sago, and coco-nuts. I never 

 used alcohol except for medicinal purposes. I found 

 that a little brandy taken when the first shivering fit 

 came on would sometimes stave off, or nip in the bud, 

 an attack of fever. At this time I did not smoke, 

 though I had with me a large quantity of trade 

 tobacco, which was the common currency of the time 

 for dealing with the natives. Tobacco was rare on 

 the coast then. The natives smoked it in bamboo 

 pipes somewhat similar to the pipes which the Chinese 

 use for smoking opium. Smoking a pipe was quite 

 an elaborate ceremony. The native who was happy 

 enough to be the possessor of a little bit of tobacco 

 would roll it with a green leaf into a kind of cigarette. 

 This would be inserted in a hole in the bamboo pipe 

 and the smoker would then hold to the tobacco a live 

 coal and deeply inhale the smoke. Then the pipe 



