LAST JOURNEY TO THE COAST 
From Babooni we returned to the Kebea, varying 
our route so as to include the village of Waley, which 
we entered during a heavy rainstorm. Waley is a 
pleasantly situated village, occupying the whole of 
one side of a hill, where a large clearing had been 
burnt out and planted with sugar-cane and bananas. 
The natives had also laid out extensive and well- 
planted gardens. 
One of the curiosities of Waley, and, indeed, one 
of the greatest curiosities that I noted during my 
stay in New Guinea, was the spiders’ web fishing-net. 
In the forest at this point huge spiders’ webs, 
6 feet in diameter, abounded. ‘These are woven in 
a large mesh, varying from 1 inch square at the out- 
side of the web to about 4th inch at the centre. 
The web was most substantial, and had great resist- 
ing power, a fact of which the natives were not slow 
to avail themselves, for they have pressed into the 
service of man this spider, which is about the size of 
a small hazel-nut, with hairy, dark-brown legs, spread- 
ing to about 2 inches. This diligent creature they 
have beguiled into weaving their fishing-nets. At 
the place where the webs are thickest they set up 
long bamboos, bent over into a loop at the end. In 
a very short time the spider weaves a web on this most 
convenient frame, and the Papuan has his fishing-net 
ready to his hand. He goes down to the stream and 
uses it with great dexterity to catch fish of about 
1 lb. weight, neither the water nor the fish sufficing 
to break the mesh. ‘The usual practice is to stand on 
a rock in a backwater where there is an eddy. There 
they watch for a fish, and then dexterously dip it 
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