82 CULTIVATION. 



Some of the cultivated patches in the Sliortlands are marked out by 

 lines of poles laid flat on the ground into long, narrow divisions, 

 about twenty feet in width, each wife of the owner of the patch con- 

 fining her labours to her own division. 



On the east side of the island of Fauro, the interval between the 

 villages of Toma and Sinasoro is to a great extent under cultivation, 

 and is occupied chiefly by banana and taro plantations. Similar 

 indications of the prosperity of the inhabitants are displayed in the 

 number of cocoa-nut palms and bread-fruit trees, with here and there 

 a grove of sago palms, which occupy the low tract of land on which 

 the village of Toma stands. In the planting season natives of the 

 Straits spend weeks in their distant plantations in the interior of 

 their islands ; and in the instance of Fauro Island, many of them 

 possess other plantations in the small outlying uninhabited islands 

 which they visit in parties at the regular periods. 



In the islands of Bougainville Straits, the banana, taro, and the 

 sweet potato are the vegetables which are grown in greatest quantity. 

 The yam does not appear to be such a favourite article of food as in 

 the eastern islands. I observed in Treasury that the natives protect 

 the short stems of the large taro against the depradations of the 

 large frugivorous bats {Pteropidce) by lashing them round with 

 sticks. 



Here, as in the eastern islands, the following method of climbing 

 the cocoa-nut palm and other trees prevailed. A lashing or thong- 

 around the ankles supports much of the weight of the body, and 

 serves as a fulcrum for each effort of the climber towards the top. 

 When the cocoa-nut palm is rather inclined to one side, I have seen 

 a native adopt the mode of the West Indian negro, and walking up 



the trunk on all fours, after the style of monkeys It 



is a singular circumstance, as residents in the group inform me, that 

 natives never seem to be struck by a falling cocoa-nut, notwithstand- 

 ing that they must be frequently exposed to injury from this cause. 

 I have often, when sitting amongst a group of natives in a village 

 under the shade of the cocoa-nut trees, been warned by those around 

 ■me that the nuts misfht fall on us. On two occasions I have had 

 heavy cocoa-nuts fall to the ground within reach of m}' arm, which, 

 if they had struck my head with the momentum imparted by a drop 

 of some fifty feet, would undoubtedly have stunned me. 



I may 'here refer to the sago palm, which is grown in far greater 

 numbers in the islands of Bougainville Straits than in St. Christoval 



