Neio Guinea. 39 



were laid loose planks, made apparently of the outer rind of tlie 

 sago-palm split open, and flattened and dried. This floor was 

 perfectly level and smooth, and felt firm and stable to the feet. It 

 was about thirty feet in width, and upwards of three hundred feet 

 long. Mr. Walsh and I both stepped it from end to end, and I 

 made it 109, and he 110 paces long ; both our paces were long 

 ones, and I know my own to be upwards of three feet. The roof 

 was formed of an arched framework of bamboo, covered with aa 

 excellent thatch of the leaves of the sago-palm. It was sixteen 

 or eighteen feet high in the centre, from which it sloped down on 

 either hand to the floor. It was perfectly waterproof, as, though 

 it was still raining hard, not a drop came through. The end 

 walls were upright, made of bamboo poles, close together, and at 

 each end were three door-ways, having the form of a gothic arch, 

 the centre being the largest. The inside of the house looked just 

 like a great tunnel. Down each side was a row of cabins : each 

 of these was of a square form, projecting about ten feet, having 

 walls of bamboo reaching from the floor to the roof, and accessible 

 at the side by a small door very neatly made of split bamboo. 

 Inside these cabins we found low frames, covered with mats, 

 apparently bed places, and overhead were shelves and pegs onwhich 

 were bows and arrows, baskets, stone axes, drums, and other 

 matters. In each cabin was a fireplace (a patch of clay), over 

 which was a small frame of sticks, as before mentioned, about two 

 feet high, three feet long, and a foot wide, as if for hanging some- 

 thing to dry or cook over the fire. A stock of dry firewood was 

 also observed in each cabin on a shelf overhead. One or two of 

 these fireplaces were also scattered about in different parts of the 

 sides of the house. Between each two cabins was a small door- 

 way, about three feet high, closed by a neatly made door or 

 shutter of split bamboo, from which a little ladder gave access to 

 the ground outside the house. At each end of the house was 

 the stage or balcony mentioned before, being merely the open 

 ends of the floor outside the end walls, on which the cross poles 

 were bare or not covered with planks. The roof, however, pro- 

 jected over these stages, both at the sides, and much more over- 

 head, protruding forward at the gable, something like the poke of 

 a lady's bonnet, but more pointed. Inside, all the centre of the 

 house, for about a third of its width, was kept quite clear, forming 

 a noble covered promenade. It was rather dark, as the only light 

 proceeded from the doors at the end, and the little side doors 

 between the cabins. ISTear the centre, on one side, was a pole 

 reaching from the floor to the roof, on which was a kind of frame- 

 work covered with skulls ; — of these, Dr. Whipple brought away 

 four, two of which he gave Captain Black n'ood, who has presented 

 them to the College of Surgeons." * 



* Mr. Jukes, ubi supra Vol. I., pages 271 — 274. 



