28 PREPARING THE BIRDS FOR SALE. 



bread. The bread is baked in a curious little 

 oven, with divisions in it. The sago is poured in, 

 and fills the spaces between the divisions. It is 

 baked in five minutes into nice hot cakes, which 

 are very delicate when eaten fresh. But they are 

 most useful dried, and put by as a supply of food. 

 It is true they get as hard as wood, but the 

 people like them, and are accustomed to live al- 

 most entirely upon them. Little children may be 

 seen gnawing the sago-cakes, as our English chil- 

 dren gnaw a crust of bread. 



The European cannot thrive on such a diet ; 

 and it requires all his love for science to enable 

 him to exist. Only one European has ever made 

 a lengthened stay there ; and he was the enter- 

 prising naturalist who endured every hardship, 

 and even risked his life, to obtain a thorough 

 knowledge of the Birds of Paradise. 



