In About Half An
Hour He Returned With A Demand For About Half The Cost Of
Building A House, For The Rent Of A Small Portion Of It For A Few
Weeks.
As the only difficulty now was a pecuniary one, I got out
about ten yards of cloth, an axe, with a few beads and some
tobacco, and sent them as my final offer for the part of the
house which I had before pointed out.
This was accepted after a
little more talk, and I immediately proceeded to take possession.
The house was a good large one, raised as usual about seven feet
on posts, the walls about three or four feet more, with a high-
pitched roof. The floor was of bamboo laths, and in the sloping
roof way an immense shutter, which could be lifted and propped up
to admit light and air. At the end where this was situated the
floor was raised about a foot, and this piece, about ten feet
wide by twenty long, quite open to the rest of the house, was the
portion I was to occupy. At one end of this piece, separated by a
thatch partition, was a cooking place, with a clay floor and
shelves for crockery. At the opposite end I had my mosquito
curtain hung, and round the walls we arranged my boxes and other
stores, fated up a table and seat, and with a little cleaning and
dusting made the place look quite comfortable. My boat was then
hauled up on shore, and covered with palm-leaves, the sails and
oars brought indoors, a hanging-stage for drying my specimens
erected outside the house and another inside, and my boys were
set to clean their gnus and get ail ready for beginning work.
The next day I occupied myself in exploring the paths in the
immediate neighbourhood. The small river up which we had ascended
ceases to be navigable at this point, above which it is a little
rocky brook, which quite dries up in the hot season. There was
now, however, a fair stream of water in it; and a path which was
partly in and partly by the side of the water, promised well for
insects, as I here saw the magnificent blue butterfly, Papilio
ulysses, as well as several other fine species, flopping lazily
along, sometimes resting high up on the foliage which drooped
over the water, at others settling down on the damp rock or on
the edges of muddy pools. A little way on several paths branched
off through patches of second-growth forest to cane-fields,
gardens, and scattered houses, beyond which again the dark wall
of verdure striped with tree-trunks, marked out the limits of the
primeval forests. The voices of many birds promised good
shooting, and on my return I found that my boy s had already
obtained two or three kinds I had not seen before; and in the
evening a native brought me a rare and beautiful species of
ground-thrush (Pitta novaeguinaeae) hitherto only known from New
Guinea.
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