CHAP. XXXIV.] COUNTRY ROUND DOREY. 311 



often mere tunnels closed over with vegetation, and in 

 such places there was always a fearful accumulation of 

 mud. To the naked Papuan this is no obstruction. He 

 wades through it, and the next watercourse makes him 

 clean again; but to myself, weariug boots and trousers, 

 it was a most disagreeable thing to have to go up to 

 my knees in a mud- hole every morning. Tlie man I 

 brought with me to cut wood fell ill soon after we arrived, 

 or I would have set him to clear fresh paths in the worst 

 places. For the first ten days it generally rained every 

 afternoon and aU night ; but by going out every hour 

 of fine weather, I managed to get on tolerably with my 

 collections of birds and insects, finding most of those 

 collected by Lesson during his visit in the CoqidlU, as 

 well as man}^ new ones. It appears, however, that Dorey 

 is not the place for Birds of Paradise, none of the natives 

 being accustomed to preserve them. Those sold here are 

 all brought from Amberbaki, about a. hundred miles west, 

 where the Doreyans go to trade. 



The islands in the bay, with the low lands near the 

 coast, seem to have been formed by recently raised coral 

 reefs, and are much strewn with masses of coral but little 

 altered. The ridge behind my house, which runs out 

 to the point, is also entirely coral rock, although there 

 are signs of a stratified foundation in the ravines, and 

 the rock itself is more compact and crystalline. It is 



