huts were concealed, and surmounted by
a dense and varied growth of timber. Canoes and boats of various sizes
were drawn up on the beach and one or two idlers, with a few children
and a dog, gazed at our prau as we came to an anchor.

When we went on shore the first thing that attracted us was a large and
well-constructed shed, under which a long boat was being built, while
others in various stages of completion were placed at intervals along
the beach. Our captain, who wanted two of moderate size for the trade
among the islands at Aru, immediately began bargaining for them, and in
a short tine had arranged the nuns number of brass guns, gongs, sarongs,
handkerchiefs, axes, white plates, tobacco, and arrack, which he was to
give for a hair which could be got ready in four days. We then went
to the village, which consisted only of three or four huts, situated
immediately above the beach on an irregular rocky piece of ground
overshadowed with cocoa-nuts, palms, bananas, and other fruit trees.
The houses were very rude, black, and half rotten, raised a few feet on
posts with low sides of bamboo or planks, and high thatched roofs. They
had small doors and no windows, an opening under the projecting gables
letting the smoke out and a little light in. The floors were of strips
of bamboo, thin, slippery, and elastic, and so weak that my feet were
in danger of plunging through at every step. Native boxes of
pandanus-leaves and slabs of palm pith, very neatly constructed, mats
of the same, jars and cooking pots of native pottery, and a few European
plates and basins, were the whole furniture, and the interior was
throughout dark and smoke-blackened, and dismal in the extreme.

Accompanied by Ali and Baderoon, I now attempted to make some
explorations, and we were followed by a train of boys eager to see what
we were going to do. The most trodden path from the beach led us into a
shady hollow, where the trees were of immense height and the undergrowth
scanty. From the summits of these trees came at intervals a deep booming
sound, which at first puzzled us, but which we soon found to proceed
from some large pigeons. My boys shot at them, and after one or two
misses, brought one down. It was a magnificent bird twenty inches long,
of a bluish white colour, with the back wings and tail intense metallic
green, with golden, blue, and violet reflexions, the feet coral red,
and the eyes golden yellow. It is a rare species, which I have n