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She and her husband both were bird-like in eye and gesture, and their nicknames among their intimates were, though neither of them knew it, the Cassowary and the Sparrow, she being the Cassowary. Besides being bird-like, they were both bores of the deepest dye.
Among these are the great wingless cassowary, two species of heavy brush turkeys, and two of short winged thrushes; which could certainly not have passed over the 150 miles of open sea to the coast of New Guinea. Now, to show the real effect of such barrier, let us take the island of Ceram, which is exactly the same distance from New Guinea, but separated from it by a deep sea.
The time came when Cassowary could no longer obtain for himself the coarse and trivial food essential to life, and he and another outcast, blind and maimed, quartered themselves on the camp on the beach; arid in spite of fretfulnesses and suspicions, their fellows administered to their wants.
I looked with intense interest on those rugged mountains, retreating ridge behind ridge into the interior, where the foot of civilized man had never trod. There was the country of the cassowary and the tree-kangaroo, and those dark forests produced the most extraordinary and the most beautiful of the feathered inhabitants of the earth the varied species of Birds of Paradise.
I say, that four feet nine is the greatest height I know. I don't speak without some foundation for my statement. The only bird I know above that height is the Paraguay cassowary; which, to be sure, is sometimes found in Brazil. But the description of your bird, Mr. Grey, does not answer that at all. I ought to know. I do not speak at random.
The bird seen by the party was a species of cassowary, which is found in Java and other East India islands. Several specimens have long since been brought to England from the island of New Britain, the natives of which call it the "mooruk," and hold it in some degree sacred.
We saw no game of any kind, yet the cassowary must abound somewhere near, as every one of the natives wears great head-dresses and neck-ruffs made from the feathers. Our highest ascent to-day was to 2360 feet above the sea-level; we call it Mount Bellamy; it stands out alone, and from it we saw the Astrolabe, Vetura, and Munikahila. 2nd.
It doubles up ix a small compass for convenient carriage, and then forms a light and elastic cushion, so that on a journey it becomes clothing, house, bedding, and furniture, all in one. The only ornaments in an Aru horse are trophies of the chase jaws of wild pigs, the heads and backbones of cassowaries, and plumes made from the feathers of the Bird of Paradise, cassowary, and domestic fowl.
A few of the aborigines, however, make themselves cloaks of opossum or kangaroo skin, stitching the pieces together with the nerve-fibres of the cassowary; but this kind of garment is of rare occurrence. Though their hair is smooth, they plaster it with grease and arrange it in curls.
Of birds, the only noticeable varieties are the condor, in the Andes, and the cassowary, a species of ostrich, smaller than that of Africa, on the plains; its plumage is not abundant, generally of a gray or dun color. Its flesh is tender and sweet, and with the fat much prized by the Indians.
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