xxiv ITINTEHARV. 



specially for us, each cake being about one-twentieth of the ordinary 

 size, and these they broke in half and wished to pass each half as a 

 whole ; at the same time, although the size was reduced, the price was 

 to remain the same. An ordinary cake we used to value at id., and 

 paid in barter accordingly, doubling the original cost of our goods 

 for freight and portage ; this was a low value to place on them, as a 

 trader who brought 15 packages, averaging 1 cubic foot each, from 

 Wai-aputa to Kwaimatta only, asked us $186, although he was coming 

 in any case. 



The Indians were rather smart in bartering, and usually tried to 

 divide the provisions they wished to dispose of into two or three lots; 

 they seemed to understand that if all were bought at once we would 

 give, say, a flask of powder or its equivalent, but when divided into 

 three lots, there Avould be a chance of getting half a flask for each. 



A small boy belonging to our party, while drinking a calabash of 

 paiwarri, was stung on the lip by a manuric ant ; this caused his head, 

 which was never at any time small, to swell, and brought on an attack 

 of fever, which caused us some delay the next day in having to wait 

 for him. Almost immediately after leaving Cosanota, we came to a 

 village of two houses called Wai^apata, at tlie foot of a big hill called 

 Warapyping, and a mile or two farther on met the Acouli, a shallow 

 rocky river running to the Kurewaka, and this we crossed five times 

 before breakfast. On this day we made a large collection of savanna 

 plants, one of the most striking having a convolvulus-like flower of a 

 bright sky-blue colour ; it was very common on this part of the savanna, 

 and we met large quantities of it for about three days, but on our 

 return, when we were a little farther north, on the other side of the 

 Kurewaka, we did not notice a single specimen. Birds and insects 

 were very scarce, and, with the exception of a very few small flocks of 

 parrakeets and an occasional hawk, we saw nothing in this line. We 

 did not observe a single insect. These small savannas between the 

 hills are dotted over with numerous ant-hills, .some of which are 

 10 feet in height. They are made of earth, cemented together so as 

 to form a hai'd solid mass ; some of the shapes are very peculiar, many 

 resembling human beings. On several occasions 1 dug the point of 

 my cutlass into these heaps, but never succeeded in finding an ant, 

 neither did we see any in the vicinity; these mounds are all on the 

 low ground, I do not remember noticing any on the hill-sides. After 

 sevei-al miles of veiy rough road, which in many places was over pure 

 white quartz and very tiring to walk on, we stopped for the night at a 

 stream, on the banks of which three curatella trees gave us barely 

 room for our hammocks, the men sleeping on the rocks near us. We 

 had some good bathing before dinner, Quelch and the Indians having 

 diving and swimming-matches. The Indians were very amused by 

 Lloyd diving head first on to a rock a little way below the surface. The 

 small fish were very startling at times, giving very sharp nips on the 

 legs whenever we ceased moving, and making us wonder if there were 

 any larger ones anxious to play the same game. 



The following day we started early and continued our course in the 

 same westerly direction for al)Out three hours. We then turned north 

 auil ascended Powliiiowta. a hill some IGOO feet in heiijht. Xext to 



