In addition to the drum formerly mentioned, and large shells--Cassis or Triton--with a hole at one end, used as trumpets, we saw a small Pandean pipe made of portions of reed of different lengths, and a tube of bamboo, two feet long, which gives out a sound like a horn when blown into.
PANDEAN PIPES.
FOOD.
The staple article of food is the yam, which is produced here in great abundance, of large size, and excellent quality. Several other tubers, or roots, are eaten. Among them is that of a species of Calladium, which requires much cooking to destroy its acridity. The coconut-tree grows everywhere. In the canoes we saw abundance of sugarcane in pieces two feet in length and an inch in thickness, and the natives brought off to us bananas, breadfruit, mangoes, and prepared arrowroot. To a certain extent also the natives feed upon fish, judging from the nets and fishing-spears seen among them. The former, although frequently thirty or forty feet in length, did not exceed eighteen inches in depth--they have small meshes, thin triangular wooden floats, and shells at the bottom as sinkers. Although we saw many pigs on shore in the village, only one was obtained by barter, in this one a spear wound behind the shoulder was made alongside the ship before handing it on board, but for what purpose we could not understand, as it did not kill the animal. Dogs also I have reason to believe are occasionally eaten, but whether cannibalism is ever practised by these people is a question which we have not the means of settling, as no evidence bearing upon the point could be obtained.
August 29th.
During our stay of thirteen days at this anchorage the wind has usually been strong from East to East-South-East, with dull, gloomy, squally weather, and occasionally showers of drizzling rain. Today, however, the rain was so heavy that we caught seven tons in the awning. To this haziness, which by obscuring distant objects was unfavourable for surveying purposes, we owed our long detention here. As our intercourse with the shore was limited to the two brief visits formerly mentioned, I made no addition to the collection, with the exception of a solitary Helix, nor was anything of zoological interest brought off by the natives, except a string of heads of a species of hornbill (Buceros plicatus) and feathers of a cassowary, a scarlet lory, and a few other birds. No fish were caught at the anchorage, probably on account of the nature of the bottom--a tenacious, greenish, muddy clay--and the strength of the current which prevented our lines from resting on the bottom. Observations made with the lead alongside at the time of high and low-water indicated by the shore showed in thirteen days' observations a rise and fall of only from two to six feet. Neither during the ebb nor the floodtide was there any appreciable difference in the direction of the current at our anchorage which set constantly to the westward between West and West-South-West, at the rate of from one to one and a half knots an hour. This current may reasonably be conjectured to come from the northward and sweep round the South-East cape of New Guinea (distant from this anchorage about fifty miles) thus making it appear probable that a clear passage exists between the South-East extreme of New Guinea and the western termination of the Louisiade Archipelago: indeed so far as Lieutenant Yule's observations were carried in this direction no reefs were seen to impede his progress to the north-east.
LEAVE THE BRUMER ISLANDS.
September 4th.