A VISIT TO THE SOLOMON ISLANDS 101 



forest a very high cane-grass grows under the trees. 

 After that has been burnt off or eaten off by cattle 

 there comes a finer grass, and after that couch grass, 

 which is excellent for cattle. It is quite easy in 

 New Guinea to run a beast to the acre. 



On my farm, in addition to the yield from dairy- 

 farming and the copra from the coco-nuts, we ob- 

 tained sweet potatoes and maize for the Samarai 

 market. The main reason guiding me in taking to 

 farm-life for a while, was that the Hon. Walter 

 Rothschild had told me that he would not wish me 

 to undertake any more collecting work for a couple 

 of years, as he had so many collections in hand. 



The farm venture was not very prosperous at 

 first. I lost a great number of cattle coming up 

 from Sydney in a storm, and afterwards pleuro 

 broke out in my herd. But it did not need these 

 minor misfortunes to convince me that I was not 

 cut out for a farmer. The call of the adventurous 

 life came again, and I was soon designing another 

 collecting trip, again making a satisfactory arrange- 

 ment with Mr. Rothschild. 



In 1901 I made my first expedition to the Solomon 

 Islands. The Solomon Islander was at the time 

 somewhat more civilised than the Papuan. He was 

 fairly prosperous as a trader in copra and in turtle- 

 shell. There are two distinct types of native in the 

 Solomons. At the west end of the Solomons, that 

 is to say, at Bougainville and New Georgia, they are 



