50 



L. HARGEAVE. 



Also on Monday, July 17th 1876, I wrote . ..." to the 

 first village on the S.W. end of Ke-wi .... there is a 

 scientifically constructed trestle bridge, forty yards long 

 and fifteen feet high across a swampy creek .... they 

 use the Pandean pipes." It is not likely that either of these 

 ideas originated from their interviews with Captain Black- 

 wood, or from Birmingham trade articles. 



The clue to the whole riddle 

 is still within our grasp. At 

 page 193, Jukes' Voyage of the 

 "Fli/," is a woodcut of a tor- 

 toise shell figure, and Jukes 

 says, at Darnley Island "Mam- 

 moos would go on board with 

 me taking a large tortoise shell 

 figure of a boy, three feet high, 

 and very curiously constructed, 

 for which I had no room, but 

 which he sold to Mr. Bell for 

 an axe." 1 



You see even Jukes noticed 

 this figure is ''very curiously 

 constructed.' No Torres Straits 

 natives boil and bend tortoise 

 shell to the shapes they want. 

 The proportions of the figure 

 are half size and more accurate 

 than an ordinary sailor would make even now. The material 

 chosen, tortoise shell, when pieces of iron armour were in his 

 possession, shows great forethought. Tortoise shell is the 

 commonest sheet material, and would not excite the cupidity 

 of the natives. Iron would court destruction for use as knives 



1 It is now in the museum of the (now Royal) United Service Institu- 

 tion. 



