The Lake Swarmed With Many Kinds Of Curious Water-Birds, The Most
Common Being A Red-Headed Kind Of Plover; There Was Also A Great
Variety Of Duck And Teal.
The swamps were full of large spiders, which
crawled all over us; we had to keep continually brushing them off.
Farther down the lake we saw another small village, and we were
told that these two villages comprised the whole of this curious
tribe. Whether they axe the remnants of a once powerful tribe it
is impossible to say, but their position is well-nigh impregnable
in case they are ever attacked, as their houses are surrounded by
swamps and water on all sides, and no outsider could very well get
through the swamps to their villages. The only possible way to get
there would be to cross the water in their shell-like canoes, a feat
which no man of any other tribe would ever be able to manage.
Monckton thought that these swamps and lake were formed by an overflow
of the Musa River. This had been a phenomenally dry season for New
Guinea, so these swamps in an ordinary wet season must be under water
to the depth of many feet.
We camped close by on the borders of the forest amid a jungle of
rank luxuriant vegetation, over which hovered large and brilliant
butterflies, among them a very large metallic green and black species
(ORNITHOPTERA PRIAMUS) and a large one of a bright blue (PAPILIO
ULYSES). The same afternoon we three went out shooting on the lake.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 158 of 217
Words from 42907 to 43167
of 59060
