A great variety of yam-like tubers are cultivated in Torres Strait. Although on Murray and Darnley and other thickly peopled and fertile islands a considerable extent of land in small patches has been brought under cultivation, at the Prince of Wales Islands the cleared spots are few in number, and of small extent--nor does the latter group naturally produce either the coconut or bamboo, or is the culture of the banana attempted. On the mainland again I never saw the slightest attempt at gardening. The principal yam, or that known by the names of kutai and ketai, is the most important article of vegetable food, as it lasts nearly throughout the dry season. Forming a yam garden is a very simple operation. No fencing is required--the patch of ground is strewed with branches and wood, which when thoroughly dry are set on fire to clear the surface--the ground is loosely turned up with a sharpened stick, and the cut pieces of yam are planted at irregular intervals, each with a small pole for the plant to climb up. These operations are completed just before the commencement of the wet season, or in the month of October. When the rains set in the biyu becomes the principal support of the Cape York and Muralug people. This is a grey slimy paste procured from a species of mangrove (Candelia ?) the sprouts of which, three or four inches long, are first made to undergo a process of baking and steaming--a large heap being laid upon heated stones, and covered over with bark, wet leaves, and sand--after which they are beaten between two stones, and the pulp is scraped out fit for use. It does not seem to be a favourite food, and is probably eaten from sheer necessity. Mixed up with the biyu to render it more palatable they sometimes add large quantities of a leguminous seed, the size of a chestnut, which has previously been soaked for a night in water, and the husk removed, or the tuber of a wild yam (Dioscorea bulbifera) cut into small pieces, and well steeped in water to remove its bitter taste. Among the edible fruits of Cape York I may mention the leara, a species of Anacardium or cashew nut (the lurgala of Port Essington) which, after being well roasted to destroy its acridity has somewhat the taste of a filbert--the elari (a species of Wallrothia) the size of an apricot, soft and mealy, with a nearly insipid but slightly mawkish taste--wobar, the small, red, mealy fruit of Mimusops kaukii--and the apiga (a species of Eugenia) a red, apple-like fruit, the pericarp of which has a pleasantly acid taste. The fruit of two species of pandanus yields a sweet mucilage when sucked, and imparts it to water in which it has been soaked, after which it is broken up between two stones, and the kernels are extracted and eaten. NO RECOGNISED CHIEFTAINSHIP.