314 NEW GUINEA. [chap. 



tufts of cassowary feathers, and the individual was represented 

 sitting with his chin resting on his hands, and a comic air of 

 determination in his wooden features. Images of this nature must 

 have existed nearly three hundred years ago, for Purchas makes 

 mention of them. " There is heere," he says, " a Bird as bigge as a 

 Crane, liee flyeth not, nor hath any Winges wherewith to flie, he 

 runneth on the ground like a Deere : of theii' small feathers they 

 doe make haire for theu" Idols." ^ 



In spite of the cemetery and the recent highly-flavoured addition 

 to it, we did not hesitate to land on Kaiari to take some observations. 

 At its western end we found a pole bearing the Dutch arms. At 

 the north-east point a small oft-lying shelf of rocks not \dsible from 

 the \'illage gave us an excellent post to connect various bearings 

 we had taken for om' rough survey of the bay and its islands. 

 Ha\dng finished this, and wishing to estimate the distance across 

 the bay to the south point of the island, I remained behind to fire 

 guns while my companions rowed over to the other side, a mile 

 and a half away, to time the reports, — a plan of judging distance 

 which with care gives sufficient accuracy for all practical purposes. 

 The operation is usually unexciting enough, but in this instance it 

 was attended with results I had not foreseen. I had hardly finished 

 my series of half a dozen discharges before I heard the splash of 

 paddles and a large canoe shot round the corner, filled with an 

 excited, jabbering crowd of natives with theu^ bows drawn at me in 

 what seemed to me an unpleasant and quite unnecessary manner. 

 They had barely made their appearance when — splash, splash — and 

 a second came into view ; then another and another, until I was 

 surrounded by quite a little fleet, and an amount of shouting and 

 jabbering that even from a Papuan's point of view must have 

 seemed excessive. Old Kawari's caution and a certain sentence in 

 Mr. Wallace's " Llalay Archipelago " — " Jobi is a very dangerous 

 place, and people are often attacked and murdered while on shore" — 

 occuiTcd to my mmd, and at the moment I wished that my 

 ^ "Purchas hys Pilgrimes," vol. ii. p. 1682. 



