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, inhabiting
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 shooting any more;
and as my chief object in visiting Waigiou was to get these birds, I
determined 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 archeologist. 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 appears 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 hot, wh