418 



THE KS ISLANDS. 



[chap, SIIX 



under the projecting gables letting the smoke out and 

 a little light in, Tlie floors were of strips of bamboo, 

 thin, slippery, and elastic, and so weak that my fcRt 

 were in danger of plunging through at every step. Native 

 boxes of pand anus-leaves and slabs of palm pith, very 

 neatly constructed, mats of the same, jars and cooking 

 pots of native pottery, and a few European plates and 

 VtCLsins, were the whole furniture, and the interior was 

 throughout dark and smoke-blackened, and dismal in the 

 extreme. 



Accompanied by Ali and Badei-oon, I now attempted to 

 make some explorations, and we were followed by a train 

 of boys eager to see what we were going to do. The most 

 trodden path from the beach led m into a shady hollow, 

 where the trees were of immense height and the under- 

 growth scanty. From the summits of these trees came at 

 intervals a deep booming sound, which at first puzzled 

 us, but which we soon found to proceed from some lai^ge 

 pigeons. My boys shot at them, and after one or two 

 misses, brought one down. It was a magnificent bird 

 twenty inches long, of a bluish white colour, with the 

 bfick wings and tail intense metallic green, with golden, 

 blue, and violet retlexioiis, the feet coi-al red, and the eyes 

 golden yellow. It is a rare species, which I have named 

 Carpophaga concinna, and is found only in a few small 

 islands, where, however, it abounds. It is the same species 

 which in the island of Banda is called the nutmeg ^pigeon, 

 from its habit of devouring the fruits, the seed or nutmeg 

 being thrown up entire and uninjured. Though these 

 pigeons have a narrow beak, yet their jaws and throat are 

 so extensible that they can swallow traits of very large 

 size. I had before shot a species much smaller than thus 

 one, which had a number of hard globular palm-fruits in 

 its crop, each more than an inch in diameter. 



A little further the path divided into two, one leading 

 along the beach, and across mangrove and sago swamps, 

 the other rising to cultivated grounds. We therefore 

 retiuned, and taking a fresh departure from the village, 

 endeavoured to ascend the hills and penetrate into the 

 interior. The path, however, was a most trying one. 

 'Where there was earth, it was a deposit of reddish clay 



