ou go alone into the forest and
are not afraid." Therefore every confession of ignorance on my part is
thought to be a blind, a mere excuse to avoid telling them too much. My
very writing materials and books are to them weird things; and were I to
choose to mystify them by a few simple experiments with lens and magnet,
miracles without end would in a few years cluster about me; and future
travellers, penetrating to Wanumbai, world h hardly believe that a poor
English naturalist, who had resided a few months among them, could have
been the original of the supernatural being to whom so many marvels were
attributed.

Far some days I had noticed a good deal of excitement, and many
strangers came and went armed with spears and cutlasses, bows and
shields. I now found there was war near us--two neighbouring villages
having a quarrel about some matter of local politics that I could not
understand. They told me it was quite a common thing, and that they are
rarely without fighting somewhere near. Individual quarrels are taken up
by villages and tribes, and the nonpayment of the stipulated price for a
wife is one of the most frequent causes of bitterness and bloodshed. One
of the war shields was brought me to look at. It was made of rattans
and covered with cotton twist, so as to be both light, strong, and very
tough. I should think it would resist any ordinary bullet. Abort the
middle there was au arm-hole with a shutter or flap over it. This
enables the arm to be put through and the bow drawn, while the body
and face, up to the eyes, remain protected, which cannot be done if
the shield is carried on the arm by loops attached at the back in the
ordinary way. A few of the young men from our house went to help their
friends, but I could not bear that any of them were hurt, or that there
was much hard fighting.

May 8th.-I had now been six weeks at Wanumbai, but for more than half
the time was laid up in the house with ulcerated feet. My stores being
nearly exhausted, and my bird and insect boxes full, and having no
immediate prospect of getting the use of my legs again, I determined
on returning to Dobbo. Birds had lately become rather scarce, and the
Paradise birds had not yet become as plentiful as the natives assured me
they would be in another month. The Wanumbai people seemed very sorry
at my departure; and well they might be, for the shells and insects they
picked up on the way to and from their plantations, and the birds