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Dr. Their knowledge of the former island has been acquired indirectly through the medium of intervening tribes. The New Guinea people are said to live chiefly on pigs and sago; from them are obtained the cassowary feathers used in their dances, and stone-headed clubs. They trade with the Gumulegas, who exchange commodities with the Badulegas, from whom the Kowrarega people receive them.
One of the police shot a large cassowary, and also a large wild pig and a wallaby, so there was plenty of food for all. We sailed again that night at eleven p.m., and got six of the Okeina canoes to tow us along. This they did not seem to relish, and before they got into line there was a great deal of angry talking and shouting, and Monckton had to call them to order by firing a rifle in the air.
The duck needs twenty-five days, the turkey twenty-seven, the peacock thirty-one, the swan forty-two, and the cassowary sixty-five. The smallest bird, the humming-bird, leaves the egg after twelve days. Hence the duration of individual development within the foetal membranes is, in the mammals and birds, clearly related to the absolute size of the body of the animal in question.
Higher up, the protopitheca the first monkey that appeared on the globe is climbing up the steep ascents. In the uppermost regions of the air immense birds, more powerful than the cassowary, and larger than the ostrich, spread their vast breadth of wings and strike with their heads the granite vault that bounds the sky. All this fossil world rises to life again in my vivid imagination.
In the cases before the visitor are the African ostrich, and his relations, the Australian cassowary, and the American emu all characterised by the absence of a hind toe. Having noticed these fine birds, the visitor will be anxious to learn something of the mysterious case , which contains a foot, the cast of a skull, and a painting.
They succeeded the cassowary, which had supplied us very seasonably: its flesh tasted like beef, and made excellent soup. But to return to the fountains. Ernest suggested the idea of ornamenting the end of the perpendicular pipe, which brought the water to the basin, with shells; every sort might be collected on the shore, of the most brilliant colours, and curious and varied shapes.
The creature was an emu; of the same family as the African ostrich, the rhea of America, and the cassowary of the Indian archipelago. On our way back, soon afterwards, and while passing through a forest, the trees of which grew rather thicker than usual, we saw in an open glade beyond it three of the kangaroos so coveted by us.
We left this morning for a pig and cassowary hunt, but were unsuccessful. We bagged four cockatoos, one green parrot, one brueros, and three pigeons.
Above all, near the leaden granitic sky, were immense birds, more powerful than the cassowary and the ostrich, which spread their mighty wings and fluttered against the huge stone vault of the inland sea. I thought, such was the effect of my imagination, that I saw this whole tribe of antediluvian creatures.
For these latter, however, they prefer brass wire, or the black, horny, wing-spines of the cassowary, which they consider a charm. Anklets of brass or shell, and tight plaited garters below the knee, complete their ordinary decorations. Some natives of Kobror from further south, and who are reckoned the worst and least civilized of the Aru tribes, came one day to visit us.
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