188 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



of them no larger than a room ; and on an occasional 

 island the natives have built temples in which are 

 stored human skulls adorned with beads and feathers. 

 These islands are treated as shrines. 



Interesting souvenirs of a prehistoric life on the 

 islands were the tablets made of petrified clam shells. 

 These tablets were pierced with eye-holes, sometimes 

 in two rows; and beneath these eye-holes were rows 

 and rows of carved figures, and designs in scroll- 

 work. The figures were of two or three different 

 types repeated over and over again. 



The natives of the present generation have no 

 idea of carving in this way. Nor can they tell where 

 these tablets came from, except that they are found 

 in caves in the hills and that they " are made by the 

 devil." The natives offered one day to show me 

 a place " which the devil had made." It was unlike, 

 they said, any other place in the world, and it was 

 high up in the mountains. One day I took an expedi- 

 tion to this " Palace of Satan," and I came upon a 

 very curious natural formation. There was a great 

 precipice, with the face of it so tessellated by some 

 natural agency that it looked as though it had been 

 built up of masonry. Until I came to examine 

 the cliff-wall closely, I had an idea that it was the 

 work of some prehistoric masons. 



The natives of this district, like most natives of 

 New Guinea and the surrounding islands, are fond 

 of attributing a great degree of activity to the devil. 



