MOUNT ERNEST ISLAND. 



155 



of thirty or more miles from the Australian coast, 

 have cocoa-nuts upon them. Captain Blackwood 

 landed upon Mount Ernest (807 feet high), and 

 found a group of huts much superior to any we ever 

 saw in Australia, a small grove of cocoa-nuts, and 

 another of large bamboos. The natives did not 

 shew themselves till after he left the island ; and 

 though he spent a night on it, he did not suspect 

 their presence at the time. In the huts were found 

 parcels of human bones, ornamented with red ochre, 

 a mask or hideous face made of wood and orna- 

 mented with the feathers of some struthious bird, 

 and one or two bundles of small wooden tubes, eight 

 inches long and half an inch in diameter, the use of 

 which we never could discover. The feathers, so 

 abundantly used as ornaments on their canoes and 

 other articles by all these islanders, were at first 

 taken by us for emu feathers, as a matter of course, 

 and supposed to be procured from the main land of 

 Australia. I was afterwards, however, induced to 

 doubt the correctness of that supposition ; and on 

 comparing them (in company with my friend Mr. 

 George Bennett of Sydney,*) with the feathers of 

 the emu, in the Sydney Museum of Natural His- 

 tory, we found them to be totally distinct from any 

 emu feathers. They are probably, therefore, fea- 

 thers of the cassowary or some similar bird, and are 

 derived from New Guinea instead of Australia 

 On Turtle-backed Island we found a few small 



* Anthor of " Wanderings in New South Wales." 



