By dawn the next morning the savages were on foot, and having consumed the remains of their supper, began to shove off their boats. Macco managed to get hold of a little more sago and meat, with which we made a scanty breakfast. We were in hopes that they were going to leave us behind, but they had no such intentions; and as soon as the boats were in the water, their mop-headed chief made signs to us to go on board—an order we obeyed with as good a grace as we could command. The canoes paddled on the whole of the next day, the coast scenery being very similar to what we had previously passed. Towards evening we entered a large bay completely sheltered from the sea. On one side of it, towards which they directed their course, we came in sight of what appeared to be a village built out on the water.
Their dwellings, if such they were, were curious, dilapidated edifices. They stood on platforms supported by posts, placed apparently without any attempt at regularity. Many of the posts were twisted and crooked, and looked as if they were tumbling down. The houses were very low, the roofs being in the shape of boats turned bottom upwards. They were connected with the land by long rude bridges, which seemed as if they could scarcely support the weight of a person going over them. As we drew nearer, we saw that the fronts of these dwellings were ornamented with rude carving, sometimes of the human figure, such as the grossest savages alone could wish to exhibit. Under the roofs of the houses were hung as decorations rows of human skulls; trophies, we concluded, of their combats with neighbouring tribes.
The canoes were received with loud shouts from the inhabitants of the village, who came out on the platforms to welcome them, lowering down some roughly made ladders to enable them to ascend. Alongside the platforms were a number of canoes of various sizes, some capable only of containing one person, with outriggers to prevent them going over. Our captors made a sign to us to follow them, and we now had to stand in a row and be inspected by their friends. We were arranged on the platform, for the houses were far too low to allow of our standing upright in them.
Fierce as the savages looked, they were most of them remarkably fine men, tall and athletic. The women, however, except a few who appeared to be very young, were most unattractive. Their features were strongly-marked, and their dress coarse and disgusting. It consisted of stripes of palm-leaves, worn tightly round the body, and reaching to the knees, and dirty in the extreme. Their hair, frizzled-out, was tied in a huge bunch at the back of the head. We saw them, while they were talking and looking at us, forking it out with large wooden forks, having four or five prongs: indeed, an ordinary comb would have been of little service in such a mass of cranial vegetation. The women wore ear-rings and necklaces arranged in a variety of ways. Some of them had two necklaces, made of white beads or kangaroo teeth, which looked well on their dark glossy skins. The ear-rings were composed of thick silver or copper wire, in hoops, the ends crossing each other. Some of them had the ends of their necklaces attached to their ear-rings, and then looped up to the chignon behind, which had a very elegant appearance, if anything could look elegant on such unprepossessing dames.
The men had a far greater number of ornaments than the women, most of them composed of the teeth of small animals. They had finger-rings as well as necklaces and ear-rings, and also bracelets. Some, too, wore bands round the arm, just beneath the shoulder, with bunches of bright-coloured feathers or hair attached to them. Others, also, wore anklets and bands, made of shell or brass-wire, below the knee. All the chiefs, and those who wished to be exquisites, carried a huge forked comb, which they continually employed in passing through their hair, much as I have seen people with large whiskers keep pulling at them when they had nothing better to do.
We only hoped that our captors had formed a better opinion of us than we had of them. They appeared undecided what to do with us. At last, however, the chief, whom we called Frizzlepate, made us a sign to enter one of the houses, and pointed to a little box-like room, into which we could just manage to creep. The partition walls of the house were formed of a sort of thatch, and the only articles of furniture we saw within were rude wooden plates and basins, with one or two metal cooking-vessels apparently, and a number of baskets and mats. Their weapons were spears, bows, and clubs. The mats were evidently used for sleeping on. They were made of the broad leaves of the pandanus, sewn together, with their usual neatness, in three layers. One end is sewn-up, so that when used for sleeping it forms a kind of sack, serving at the same time for mattress and coverlid. We saw them also used in rainy weather, worn over the head, the sewn-up end being uppermost, serving thus the purpose of umbrella and greatcoat. Most of the men wore in their belts a chopping-knife and axe. Some of them had besides smaller knives, and a skin pouch, with a bamboo case, containing betel-root, tobacco, and lime. The mats, however, were certainly the most useful articles in their possession. They could be folded up in a very small space for travelling, both as a protection from rain and as bedding at night: indeed, they were equal in most respects to the Mackintosh rugs used by our officers in campaigning.
We were expecting to go supperless to our cramped-up bed, when a woman, with a more pleasing expression of countenance than most of those we had seen, came to our room with a basket containing some plantains and yams, with a few cooked fish. She signed to us to take the contents and give her back the basket, with which she immediately disappeared. Anxiety for the future would have kept us awake, had not our ears been assailed by the loud chattering and laughter of the natives in the hut in which we were located, as well as in those around us. Even in that small hut there must have been a dozen or twenty people, which was not surprising, if they were contented with the small space they had awarded us.