Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During the Years 1846-1850. — Volume 2: Including Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea, the Louisiade Archipelago, Etc. to Which Is Added the Account of Mr. E.B. Kennedy's Expedition for the Exploration of the Cape York Peninsula. By John Macgillivray, F.R.G.S. Naturalist to the Expedition. — John Shaqi
Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During the Years 1846-1850. — Volume 2: Including Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea, the Louisiade Archipelago, Etc. to Which Is Added the Account of Mr. E.B. Kennedy's Expedition for the Exploration of the Cape York Peninsula. By John Macgillivray, F.R.G.S. Naturalist to the Expedition.MacGillivray, John
History
Narrative of the Voyage of H.M.S. Rattlesnake, Commanded By the Late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N., F.R.S. Etc. During the Years 1846-1850. — Volume 2: Including Discoveries and Surveys in New Guinea, the Louisiade Archipelago, Etc. to Which Is Added the Account of Mr. E.B. Kennedy's Expedition for the Exploration of the Cape York Peninsula. By John Macgillivray, F.R.G.S. Naturalist to the Expedition.
MacGillivray, John
Kennedy, Edmund Besley Court, 1818-1848; Natural history -- Oceania; Oceania -- Description and travel; Rattlesnake (Ship); Stanley, Owen
During the night a party of natives in five canoes came over from the
Calvados Group, and first attracted our attention by making several fires
on the middle and easternmost islands. Soon after daybreak they came
alongside in their usual boisterous manner. A few words of their language
which were procured proved to be of great interest by agreeing generally
with those formerly obtained at Brierly Island, while the numerals were
quite different and corresponded somewhat with those of my Brumer Island
vocabulary. Two of the canoes--one of which carried sixteen people--were
large and heavy and came off under sail, tacking outside of us and
fetching under the ship's stern. In these large canoes the paddles are of
proportionate size and very clumsy--they are worked as oars with the aid
of cane grommets--the sail is of the large oblong shape formerly
described. One of the canoes was furnished with a small stage above the
platform for the reception of a large bundle of coarse mats, six feet
long and two and a half broad, made by interlacing the leaflets of the
cocoa-palm; these mats are probably used in the construction of temporary
huts when upon a cruise.
Although rather a better sample of the Papuan race than that which we had
lately seen at Redscar Bay, there was no marked physical distinction
between these inhabitants of the Louisiade and the New Guinea men. The
canoes, however, are as different as the language; here, as throughout
the Archipelago, the canoes have the semblance of a narrow coffin-like
box, resting upon a hollowed-out log, the bow having the two
characteristic ornaments of the tabura, or head-board, and the crest-like
carved woodwork running out along the beak. Some of the natives were
recognised as former visitors to the ship. Nearly all were painted,
chiefly on the face, the favourite pattern being series of white bars and
spots on a black ground. Except their ornaments and weapons, they had
little to give us for the iron hoop so much in request with them; only a
few coconuts, and scarcely any yams were obtained, and to the latter they
attached a much higher value than formerly.
SAIL FOR SYDNEY.
At length the natives left us, three canoes making to the northward, and
two returning to the Duchateau Isles. Morning observations for rating the
chronometers having been obtained, we got underweigh soon afterwards,
and, bidding farewell to the Louisiade Archipelago, commenced our voyage
to Sydney.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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