NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
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enclosures adjoining the houses, but to a limited extent, and there are no large clearings nor 
indeed any kind of cultivation leaving its mark on the general features of the vegetation 
of the islands as viewed from the sea, as at Humboldt Bay, Api, or Fiji. Plantains are 
grown sparingly round the houses ; and a bread-fruit tree also about the villages. Several 
wild fruits, a Hog-plum (Sponclias), a small fig, and the fertile fronds of a fern are eaten 
by the natives, and they have a sugar cane of better quality than that used at Humboldt 
Bay. Young cocoanut trees are planted about the houses, and carefully protected 
from injury by means of neatly-woven cylindrical fences ; they are also planted with 
care on the uninhabited islands. The natives have no Yams ( Dioscorea ) nor sweet- 
potatoes. 
The flesh of pigs is roasted by the natives, and served for eating, placed on 
a quantity of the prepared sago in large wooden bowds, which are often elaborately 
carved (see Plate M). The Phalanger of the islands ( Cuscus ) is also roasted whole, and is 
carried about cold, w r ith head, tail, and legs intact, ready to be torn with the teeth and 
eaten at any moment. 
Fig. 242. — Earthenware pot with two handles, and Fig. 243. — Spherical earthenware pot, from the 
supported on four feet, from the Admiralty Admiralty Islands. 
Islands. 
The natives possess pottery, although apparently in small quantity only; it is neither 
glazed nor ornamented. An earthen pot was obtained from them, represented in the 
accompanying woodcut (see fig. 242). Like the bowls it is supported on four feet and like 
them has a pair of lateral inwardly curved handles. Although no proof that this was 
of their own manufacture was obtained, it is probable that it was made by them, 
since Melanesians are mostly potters, and the pattern is obviously copied from that of 
their wooden bowls. The natives have also large, nearly spherical, cooking pots of thin 
black earthenware with narrow necks (see fig. 243). 
There are wells on the inhabited islands at some little distance from the houses ; 
they are shallow holes dug in the coral ground, and are kept covered in with sheets of 
bark. Cocoanut shell cups are hung up for drinking at each well. 
