bamboo
spears. With this he transfixed the poor creature to the ground; but
even then it struggled, and not till he had made use of his knife, half
severing the head from the body, did the creature die. It looked
somewhat, in its white, woolly covering, like a small, fat lamb; but it
had short legs, hand-like feet, with large claws.

"He make bery good dinner for us," observed Macco. "No fear of our
starving. Dat good t'ing."

Oliver and I were very glad, and thanked him very much for catching the
creature. However, I urged him to go back at once, that we might
continue our work on the sago-tree, for I was sure that, though by
eating flesh and fish we might support our lives, we should not retain
our health without bread, or a substitute for it, which the sago would
afford. From the height of the sun, in addition to the hints of our own
appetites, we guessed that it was already past noon. We therefore
proposed returning with the cuscus to our hut. Tying up the legs of our
prize with the ratan, we passed a piece of bamboo through them, and took
our way by the path we had cut to the beach. Our fire was out, and the
number of flies collected round our mollusc made us doubtful whether we
were not too late to preserve it from destruction.

"Soon drive dem away," said Macco, and bringing fresh fuel, he piled it
up under the triangle. "I get fire dis time," he said. "I see man on
board de prow do it de oder day."

Taking a piece of bamboo sharpened like a knife in one hand, he held
another piece in the other, split in two, with the convex part
uppermost, in which he had cut a small notch. He began passing the
sharp piece slowly over the other, as a fiddler does his bow over his
fiddle--strings, increasing in rapidity, till, in a very short time, the
powder produced by the friction ignited, and fell down upon the ashes.
This he quickly blew up, and even more rapidly than I could have done
with my burning-glass, a flame was produced. The smoke which ascended
soon sent some of the flies to a distance, while the others fell down
into the fire. This gave us a hint that we must not leave any of our
food exposed, or that it would very quickly be destroyed.

"Cuscus better for dinner dan dis," he said, for he had heard me name
the creature; and he at once began to draw off the skin; then cutting
some slices off the animal, he soon had them toasting on forked sticks
before the fire.

"I wish I had some salt," I obs