Immediately Above Was A Large Newly-Made Plantation Of
Yams And Plantains, And A Small Hot, Which The Chief Said We
Might Have The Use Of, If It Would Do For Me.
It was quite a
dwarf's house, just eight feet square, raised on posts so that
the floor was four and a half feet above the ground, and the
highest part of the ridge only five feet above the flour.
As I am
six feet and an inch in my stockings, I looked at this with some
dismay; but finding that the other houses were much further from
water, were dreadfully dirty, and were crowded with people, I at
once accepted the little one, and determined to make the best of
it. At first I thought of taking out the floor, which would leave
it high enough to walk in and out without stooping; but then
there would not be room enough, so I left it just as it was, had
it thoroughly cleaned out, and brought up my baggage. The upper
story I used for sleeping in, and for a store-room. In the lower
part (which was quite open all round) I fixed up a small table,
arranged my boxes, put up hanging-shelves, laid a mat on the
ground with my wicker-chair upon it, hung up another mat on the
windward side, and then found that, by bending double and
carefully creeping in, I could sit on my chair with my head just
clear of the ceiling. Here I lived pretty comfortably for six
weeks, taking all my meals and doing all my work at my little
table, to and from which I had to creep in a semi-horizontal
position a dozen times a day; and, after a few severe knocks on
the head by suddenly rising from my chair, learnt to accommodate
myself to circumstances. We put up a little sloping cooking-but
outside, and a bench on which my lads could skin their birds. At
night I went up to my little loft, they spread their mats on the,
floor below, and we none of us grumbled at our lodgings.
My first business was to send for the men who were accustomed to
catch the Birds of Paradise. Several came, and I showed them my
hatchets, beads, knives, and handkerchiefs; and explained to
them, as well as I could by signs, the price I would give for
fresh-killed specimens. It is the universal custom to pay for
everything in advance; but only one man ventured on this occasion
to take goods to the value of two birds. The rest were
suspicious, and wanted to see the result of the first bargain
with the strange white man, the only one who had ever come to
their island. After three days, my man brought me the first bird-
-a very fine specimen, and alive, but tied up in a small bag, and
consequently its tail and wing feathers very much crushed and
injured. I tried to explain to him, and to the others that came
with him, that I wanted them as perfect as possible, and that
they should either kill them, or keep them on a perch with a
string to their leg. As they were now apparently satisfied that
all was fair, and that I had no ulterior designs upon them, six
others took away goods; some for one bird, some for more, and one
for as many as six. They said they had to go a long way for them,
and that they would come back as soon as they caught any. At
intervals of a few days or a week, some of them would return,
bringing me one or more birds; but though they did not bring any
more in bags, there was not much improvement in their condition.
As they caught them a long way off in the forest, they would
scarcely ever come with one, but would tie it by the leg to a
stick, and put it in their house till they caught another. The
poor creature would make violent efforts to escape, would get
among the ashes, or hang suspended by the leg till the limb was
swollen and half-putrefied, and sometimes die of starvation and
worry. One had its beautiful head all defiled by pitch from a
dammar torch; another had been so long dead that its stomach was
turning green. Luckily, however, the skin and plumage of these
birds is so firm and strong, that they bear washing and cleaning
better than almost any other sort; and I was generally able to
clean them so well that they did not perceptibly differ from
those I had shot myself.
Some few were brought me the same day they were caught, and I had
an opportunity of examining them in all their beauty and
vivacity. As soon as I found they were generally brought alive, I
set one of my men to make a large bamboo cage with troughs for
food and water, hoping to be able to keep some of them. I got the
natives to bring me branches of a fruit they were very fond of,
and I was pleased to find they ate it greedily, and would also
take any number of live grasshoppers I gave them, stripping off
the legs and wings, and then swallowing them. They drank plenty
of water, and were in constant motion, jumping about the cage
from perch to perch, clinging on the top and sides, and rarely
resting a moment the first day till nightfall. The second day
they were always less active, although they would eat as freely
as before; and on the morning of the third day they were almost
always found dead at the bottom of the cage, without any apparent
cause. Some of them ate boiled rice as well as fruit and insects;
but after trying many in succession, not one out of ten lived
more than three days. The second or third day they would be dull,
and in several cases they were seized with convulsions, and fell
off the perch, dying a few hours afterwards.
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