Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
mainland of New Guinea, and getting a few goods on credit from some Ceram or Bugis
trader, make hard bargains with the natives, and gain enough to pay their tribute, and leave a
little profit for themselves.
Such a country is not a very pleasant one to live in, for as there are no superfluities, there
is nothing to sell; and had it not been for a trader from Ceram who was residing there during
my stay, who had a small vegetable garden, and whose men occasionally got a few spare
fish, I should often have had nothing to eat. Fowls, fruit, and vegetables are luxuries very
rarely to be purchased at Muka; and even cocoa-nuts, so indispensable for eastern cookery,
are not to be obtained; for though there are some hundreds of trees in the village, all the fruit
is eaten green, to supply the place of the vegetables the people are too lazy to cultivate.
Without eggs, cocoa-nuts, or plantains, we had very short commons, and the boisterous
weather being unpropitious for fishing, we had to live on what few eatable birds we could
shoot, with an occasional cuscus, or eastern opossum, the only quadruped, except pigs, in-
habiting the island.
I had only shot two male Paradiseas on my tree when they ceased visiting it, either owing
to the fruit becoming scarce, or that they were wise enough to know there was danger. We
continued to hear and see them in the forest, but after a month had not succeeded in shoot-
ing any more; and as my chief object in visiting Waigiou was to get these birds, I determin-
ed to go to Bessir, where there are a number of Papuans who catch and preserve them. I
hired a small outrigger boat for this journey, and left one of my men to guard my house and
goods. We had to wait several days for fine weather, and at length started early one morning,
and arrived late at night, after a rough and disagreeable passage. The village of Bessir was
built in the water at the point of a small island. The chief food of the people was evidently
shell-fish, since great heaps of the shells had accumulated in the shallow water between the
houses and the land, forming a regular 'kitchen-midden' for the exploration of some future
archæologist. We spent the night in the chief's house, and the next morning went over to the
mainland to look out for a place where I could reside. This part of Waigiou is really another
island to the south of the narrow channel we had passed through in coming to Muka. It ap-
pears to consist almost entirely of raised coral, whereas the northern island contains hard
crystalline rocks. The shores were a range of low limestone cliffs, worn out by the water, so
that the upper part generally overhung. At distant intervals were little coves and openings,
where small streams came down from the interior; and in one of these we landed, pulling
our boat up on a patch of white sandy beach. Immediately above was a large newly-made
plantation of yams and plantains, and a small hut, 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
