NATIVE PIPE. 



165 



was a little hole containing a few inches of fresh 

 water, carefully covered from the sun by sticks and 

 lumps of wood. We passed several spots which 

 seemed to have been partially cleared and under- 

 gone some cultivation, in which were long kidney- 

 bean -like plants climbing up sticks. We afterwards 

 discovered these were " ketai" plants, a kind of yam. 



Seeing some white pigeons, we explained to the 

 native what wc were going to do, and went after 

 them, and he seemed greatly surprised and de- 

 lighted at seeing them brought down on the wing. 



On returning to the huts we purchased all the cocoa- 

 nuts they could spare to take on board. On giving 

 a man a cigar he begged from me, he took up what 

 1 had previously imagined a musical instrument, 

 which I now found however to be a pipe. This 



was a piece of bamboo, about two feet long, and 

 two inches in diameter ; it was partly open at one 

 end, and had a small lateral hole, near the other 

 extremity. Into this lateral hole he fixed a hollow 

 conical piece of wood for a bowl, making it air-tight 

 by wrapping a leaf round it, and then sticking the 

 cigar into it, and lighting it, he applied his mouth 

 to the large orifice at the other end of the bamboo, 



