206 
BURIAL RITES. 
show of secrecy. On being allowed to come in, 
he rolled on the floor from a sack half-a-dozen 
skulls. He was, however, a man of Waitidal 
village, and perhaps did not feel any respect 
for the dead of Kit&beL 
Some of the bodies placed on the rocks are 
encased in a disused prahu, sometimes only 
within strips of the sago-palm. These latter 
soon give way, when the skeleton lies bare, and 
is shortly knocked down on the shore by some 
high wind or haunting bird. A most sickening 
odour used to come down the wind from the 
north after rain, and at all times our men were 
very unwilling to go past that quarter : they said 
the smell gave them fever. We sometimes went, 
for veiy beautiful butterflies flitted about these 
rocks, and, as I have said, the boulders are of the 
most fantastic shapes. Once we were lured on 
some miles along the beach by curiosity to see 
what freak of form would next present itself. 
And now I have little more to tell of 
this unusual experience. The steamer, we 
thought, was due on 20th September, but it 
was eight days longer in coming than we 
reckoned on. The shot was done, the men 
refused to go at all into the forest, the word 
“ Kaleobar ” w T as in eveiy one’s mouth, the 
