ich the chief said we might have the use
of, if it would do for me. It was quite a dwarf's house, just eight feet
square, raised on posts so that the floor was four and a half feet above
the ground, and the highest part of the ridge only five feet above the
flour. As I am six feet and an inch in my stockings, I looked at this
with some dismay; but finding that the other houses were much further
from water, were dreadfully dirty, and were crowded with people, I at
once accepted the little one, and determined to make the best of it.
At first I thought of taking out the floor, which would leave it high
enough to walk in and out without stooping; but then there would not be
room enough, so I left it just as it was, had it thoroughly cleaned out,
and brought up my baggage. The upper story I used for sleeping in, and
for a store-room. In the lower part (which was quite open all round) I
fixed up a small table, arranged my boxes, put up hanging-shelves, laid
a mat on the ground with my wicker-chair upon it, hung up another mat on
the windward side, and then found that, by bending double and carefully
creeping in, I could sit on my chair with my head just clear of the
ceiling. Here I lived pretty comfortably for six weeks, taking all my
meals and doing all my work at my little table, to and from which I had
to creep in a semi-horizontal position a dozen times a day; and, after
a few severe knocks on the head by suddenly rising from my chair, learnt
to accommodate myself to circumstances. We put up a little sloping
cooking-but outside, and a bench on which my lads could skin their
birds. At night I went up to my little loft, they spread their mats on
the floor below, and we none of us grumbled at our lodgings.

My first business was to send for the men who were accustomed to catch
the Birds of Paradise. Several came, and I showed them my hatchets,
beads, knives, and handkerchiefs; and explained to them, as well as I
could by signs, the price I would give for fresh-killed specimens. It is
the universal custom to pay for everything in advance; but only one man
ventured on this occasion to take goods to the value of two birds. The
rest were suspicious, and wanted to see the result of the first bargain
with the strange white man, the only one who had ever come to their
island. After three days, my man brought me the first bird--a very fine
specimen, and alive, but tied up in a small bag, and consequently its
tail and wing feathers ve