210 
MELVILLE ISLAND. 
their dead^ their buriaUplaces being in retired spots near 
their most frequented eocamping gi-ound. The burial- 
place is circular, probably ten or twelve feet in diameter ; 
it is surrounded by upright poleSj many of which are 
formed at top like lances and halbertSj fourteen or fifteen 
feet high; and between these the spears and waddiea 
(probably of the deceased) are stuck upright in the 
ground. It is quite impossible to form any estimate of 
the numbers of the nativesj but they are seen on all parts 
of the coast of these two islands. I shall not presume 
even to give a guess at tbcir probable numbers."* 
It is to be feared that JMajor Campbell was correct in 
his surmises as to Melville Island having once been the 
resort of slave-ships; for according to the testimony of 
the older inhabitants of Timor,. Melville Island was only 
less a source of slavery than New Guinea, in proportion 
to its smaller extent of surface, at the period in which the 
slave-trade was encouraged or connived at by the Euro- 
pean authorities in the Archipelago. However, there is 
no reason to suppose that the island has recently been 
visited by slavers, for although the words used by the 
natives on the occasion of Captain King's visit were un- 
doubtedly Portuguese, they may have been acquired at a 
much earlier period; for foreign words, and short sen- 
tences that are connected with remarkable events, are 
handed down from generation to generation by the reci- 
tations with which the native bivouacs are often enlivened 
during the earlier part of the night. Indeed, e3q>ression8 
that have been learned from strangers spread from tribe 
* Campbell in " Jornml of the Geographical Society/* vol. rr, 
p. 152, 
