268 THE ARU ISLANDS. [chap, xxxii; 



where they were hauled up on the beach, and were being 

 caulked and covered with a thick white lime-plaster for 

 the homeward voyage, making them the brightest and 

 cleanest looking things in the place. Most of the small 

 boats had returned from the " blakang-tana " (back 

 country), as the side of the islands towards N'ew Guinea 

 is called. Piles of firewood were being heaped up behind 

 the houses ; sail-makers and carpenters were busy at 

 work ; mother-of-pearl shell was being tied up in bundles, 

 and the black and ugly smoked tripang was having a 

 last exposure to the sun before loading. The spare 

 portion of the crews were employed cutting and squaring 

 timber, and boats from Ceram and Goram were constantly 

 unloading their cargoes of sago-cake for the traders' home- 

 ward voyage. The fowls, ducks, and goats all looked fat 

 and thriving on the refuse food of a dense population, and 

 the Chinamen's pigs were in a state of obesity that fore- 

 boded early death. Parrots and lories and cockatoos, 

 of a dozen different kinds, were suspended on bamboo 

 perches at the doors of the houses, with metallic green or 

 white fruit-pigeons which cooed musically at noon and 

 eventide. Young cassowaries, strangely striped with 

 black and brown, wandered about the houses or gambolled 

 with the playfulness of kittens in the hot sunshine, with 

 sometimes a pretty little kangaroo, caught in the Aru 

 forests, but already tame and graceful as a petted fawn. 



