224 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



dread at the time was, so far as I remember, that some 

 one of my collecting boys should fire a gun and thus 

 frighten away the strangers. I was extremely anxious 

 to get into touch with them and to make friends, 

 partly to get food and partly to enlist their help in 

 my collecting work. On previous expeditions in the 

 hill country of British New Guinea I had obtained 

 the most valuable help from the volunteer native 

 assistants, who had been satisfied to bring me in 

 great numbers of specimens and ample supplies of 

 food in return for some small articles of trade. 



As I found that I was not getting on very well with 

 what eloquence I could attempt on natives who under- 

 stood nothing of what I said, and probably little of 

 my signs, I thought that possibly they would under- 

 stand my meaning if I showed them some feathers of 

 Birds of Paradise. I went to my tent, therefore, and 

 brought out some plumage and waved it over my head. 

 I then endeavoured, by making noises resembling a 

 gun going off and making signs of a gun being pointed, 

 to show them that I was there to shoot Birds of Para- 

 dise. I think the spectacle would have been rather 

 amusing if there had been a white observer. It was 

 successful to this extent, that the natives came some- 

 what closer. Then I threw towards them a knife 

 and a tomahawk as presents. Promptly they bolted 

 back into the bush. I persevered and gave one of 

 my boys a knife to offer the natives. More cunning 

 than I had been, he threw it, not towards them 



