BY A. J. DUFFIELD. 



117 



on the forehead were certainly most sti'iking, both in effect and 

 for their workmanship. Ear and nose ornaments were abun- 

 dant, and elaborately cut. Flowers and sweet-smelling grasses 

 were plentifully used by the women ; sometimes, when thrown 

 away after use, they would be worn by the men in their armlets. 

 The fine, hand-made shell-beads, chiefly worn by women, are 

 marvels of patience and skill. The forms into which they were 

 strung are all Egyptian forms ; so are their combs, Korro. 

 Bracelets, common to men and women, made from Trochus 

 niloticus shell, are very striking in effect and workmanship. 

 Weaving, spinning, and colouring of flax to make armlets and 

 garters — not to hold up stockings, but to adorn the leg imme- 

 diately below the knee, worn like our "garter" order — are 

 beautiful examples of artistic taste. But their skill and 

 devotion are lavished on their spears. They have no bows and 

 arrows, but their spears and clubs — especially the ampacalufatt 

 and kelsucool — are shaped and decorated with surpi-ising love 

 and taste for all that is graceful and beautiful. This is not to 

 be wondered at, seeing that blood-revenge is the onl}' religion 

 which is universal, and passionately followed, among them. 

 The idea that English men-of-war, by burning canoes and 

 \'illages, as punishment for the murder of white men hj natives 

 who had been outraged, in the hope that such practise will 

 cease, is erroneous. Ever since the cruise of the " Rosario," 

 ten or twelve years ago, the ornamentation of arrows, clubs, 

 and other lethal instruments has gone on improving — a state- 

 ment easily verified by comparisons made at the islands of the 

 old weapons and weapons at present in use. The swoi-d of 

 Boabdil, the last of the Moors, still to be seen in Granada, is 

 not moi-e lavishly ornamented, nor with greater taste than are 

 some of the spears of the New Irelanders and their neighbours. 

 The principal agricultural implement which I was able to secure 

 is the fall, a kind of hoe, made of shells, whale's teeth, .stone, 

 and noAv always of iron. The form of this implement is also 

 Egyptian, and is the same, only smaller, as used in New Guinea 

 and Fiji a century ago. They cultivate on a great scale the 

 cocoa-palm, taro, and fine yams, their chief staples of food and 

 trade ; also sugar-cane, tobacco, arrowroot, bread-fruit, several 

 kinds of melons, vegetable-marrows, sweet potatoes, and many 

 other vegetables, nuts, fungi, and fruits. I found them a singu- 

 larly polite and courteous people, strikingl}^ Oriental in their 

 conversational habits and customs, and Spanish, or Moorish, in 

 many homely gestures aud facial expressions. I did not notice 

 a single case of mutilation ; all their teeth and eyebrows were 



