290 



NE1V GUINEA. 



[chap. 



together that it woukl be an aftair of some difficulty to pass between 

 them. These poles raise the house to a height of eighteen or 

 twenty feet from the ground, and access to the building is afforded 

 by a notched tree-trunk leant against the platform. Its ascent 

 requires considerable caution, but the miserable, half-starved native 

 dogs manage in some way to accomplish it. These huts differ 



HUT NEAR ANDAI. 



from the turtle-backed dwellings of the Dorei Bay people in being 

 quite small, and in having a high-pitched roof, but the main 

 features — the platform and the central alley-way — are the same. 



We gazed at the rain-swept peaks which lay before us with no 

 little interest, for the dense forests that clothed them were, we 

 knew, the favoured haunts of the rare and magnificent birds of 

 Paradise for which IVlr. Wallace had searched in vain. There was 

 the great velvet-black Epimachus, with its tail a yard in length ; 

 the Astrapia in its uniform of dark A'iolet faced with golden- 

 green and copper ; and the orange-coloured Xanthomelus. There 



