de at me with the spear.

After the black had worked himself up into a perspiration, instead of,
as I expected, bursting out laughing, he kept on pointing to the land,
crying, "No, no, no!" and then, "Kill bird, kill man, Nat, mi boy, kill
Ung-kul Dit; kill Ebo. No, no, no!"

"You mean that the savages will kill us if we land?" I said.

"Kill, kill," he cried, nodding his head excitedly, and banging the side
of the boat with his club; "kill, kill, kill. Kill Ebo, kill Nat, mi
boy, kill Ung-kul Dit, kill boat, kill, kill. No, no, no!"

"Well done, Ebo!" cried my uncle laughing. "Your English is splendid.
Good boy."

"Ebo, good boy," cried the black. "No, no, no. Kill, kill."

"They sha'n't kill us, Ebo," said my uncle, taking up his gun and
pointing it at the shore; while, to make his meaning clearer, I did the
same. "Shoot--kill man."

"Shoot! kill!" cried Ebo, who evidently understood, for he picked up his
spear, and thrust with it fiercely towards the shore. "Yes, shoot; kill
man," he continued, nodding his head; but he seemed very much
dissatisfied and gazed intently towards the distant land.

"He seems to know the character of the New Guinea savages, Nat," said
Uncle Dick. "I have always heard that they are a fierce and cruel set,
but we shall soon see whether it is safe to land."

We sailed gently on, for it turned out a glorious moonlight night, and
altering our course a little we were at sunrise within a couple of miles
of what seemed to be a very beautiful country, wooded to the shore, and
rising up inland to towering mountains. Great trees seemed to prevail
everywhere, but we saw no sign of human being.

"The place looks very tempting, Nat," said uncle, "and if we can hit
upon an uninhabited part I expect that we should find some capital
specimens for our cases. Let us see what the place is like."

Ebo tried in his fashion to dissuade us from going farther, and it was
evident that the poor fellow was terrible uneasy as the boat was run in
close to the shore, when all at once about a dozen nude black savages
came running down to the water's edge, making signs to us to land, and
holding up bunches of bright feathers and rough skins of birds.

"They look friendly, Nat," said my uncle.

"Look here; I will land and take them a few presents in beads and brass
wire; we shall soon see if they mean mischief."

"I'll come with you, uncle," I said.

"No; you stop with the boat and keep her afl