NARRATIVE OF THE CRUISE. 
705 
newspapers in trade freely as they did at the first, thinking them to be fine cloth, until 
rain had fallen. They soon took to making trade goods, shell hatchets, and models of 
canoes, to sell to the Expedition, and these were as badly made as the trade-gear given 
in exchange. They understood the rules of barter well, and, as in Labillardiere’s time, 
seemed anxious to pay their debts. They must trade with one another regularly. They 
pretended, with many expressive grimaces, to be unable to bend pieces of tortoiseshell 
which they offered for sale,, and of the thickness (i.e., fine quality) of which they wished 
to impress the purchaser. They often thus pretended to try ineffectually to bend very 
thin pieces, and fully entered into the joke when the buyers did the same with thin bits 
of hoop iron. They always required to see the hoop iron tested by bending before 
accepting it. They made signs that the ore of manganese which they use came in 
canoes from a distance eastwards. The native canoes are so seaworthy, and the natives 
so enterprising and fearless, that possibly articles may pass by barter from island to island 
over wide distances, even to New Hanover and New Britain. 
The natives took all the hoop iron they could get from the ship, evidently receiving 
more than they could use, no doubt intending it for future barter. They were anxious 
to trade to the very last, and followed the ship to sea from the anchorage with that 
intent. They were in a highly excited state, especially at first, and the man from whom 
some of the first obsidian headed spears were procured fairly trembled with excitement as 
two pieces of hoop iron were handed to him. The natives have no metals of their own. 
They blacken their bodies with the ore of manganese, which they call “ laban,” and they 
have adopted the same term for iron. They appear unable to work iron at all, since they 
refused any pieces not of a form immediately applicable for use. They preferred a small 
piece of hoop iron to a conical mass of iron weighing several pounds. 
The natives are quieter than the Humboldt Bay men, and there was comparatively 
little noise and no combined shouting when their canoes were alongside. They are 
rapacious and greedy, and very jealous of one another, the chief showing all these traits 
in the highest degree. They were ready enough to thieve, but not so constantly on the 
lookout for plunder as the Humboldt Bay Papuans. 
The native guides who accompanied parties of explorers always went armed, and 
were much frightened and astonished at first at the sound of a gun. One of the 
guides, when birds were being shot, stopped his ears at first, and bent down trembling 
every time the gun went off. The natives were not, however, much scared when on one 
occasion the ships’ guns and some rockets were fired at night, but came off next day to 
the ship to trade as if nothing had happened. 
The natives showed no great astonishment at matches or a burning glass, apparently 
uaderstanding the latter, and motioning that the operator should wait until the sun 
came from behind a cloud. Looking glasses were not at all understood ; they were tried 
in all positions, for example, as ornaments on the head and breast, but the men seemed 
