DOWAR AND WAIER. 201 



a circular island, bounded by steep cliffs, on the 

 top of which was a line of broken crags, looking 

 like a ruined wall surrounding a central hollow. 

 On the north end of this also was a small sand-flat, 

 from which a shoal bar stretched, dry at low water, 

 and then connecting it with Dowar. On the sandy 

 flat was one hut with a small plantation ; and being 

 obliged to anchor in consequence of squalls, and the 

 tide setting against us, we pulled ashore in a little 

 punt, and landed near it unarmed. Several people, 

 chiefly women, crossed over from Dowar, and met 

 us, and, with two or three old men and some boys, 

 seemed delighted to see us. Near the hut on 

 Waier was a small enclosure, surrounded by a 

 bamboo railing, in which were some old cocoa-nut 

 trees, and a great many young ones just sprouting. 

 Shells were hung up all round the railing, and on 

 an old stump in the centre was a skull, old and 

 weather beaten, smeared with red streaks of paint, 

 and with several red flowers arranged on some twigs 

 before it. Festoons of ropes, ornamented, with 

 feathers, hung round it from the trees ; and we 

 thought, from the pains taken, some great value 

 must be attached to it, yet they allowed us freely to 

 handle and examine it, seeming rather amused at 

 our curiosity, and eventually they even sold it to us 

 for a stick of tobacco. 



Captain Blackwood and I scrambled along some 

 distance under the cliffs, but could find no point 



