The rank yellow smoke which curls round her does not inconvenience her in the least. She takes no heed of it, but blows away at the embers, regardless of smarting eyes and choking throat, probably because she feels neither. She never fears that the fire will spread and burn down her home, but just goes on cooking. If you speak to her she may stop blowing for a second and glance up at you, but never a word passes her lips, and soon she will be blowing again as if it was quite an ordinary thing to have a white man staring at her. But though the smoke does not trouble her a bit, it blinds you, and you soon hurry on to the {20} next hut, and there confine your attention to its outside. The roofs are thatched with palm leaves which, though scant, keep out the rain and sun. The sides and back are also composed of a kind of thatch on a framework of bamboo or thin wood. Unlike the habitations of many other branches of this race, these huts show very little artistic work inside. They are quite bare. A few cooking-pots may be seen lying about, and these are the only things which lead one to suppose that the huts are inhabited. The resemblance of the interiors of all of them is only equal to the sameness of the exteriors, which makes it impossible to know which one you have been in and which you have not. This, added to the extreme difficulty a new chum experiences in getting from one house to another, does not add to the equability of his temper. It needs a steady head and good balancing powers to keep footing on these planks, many of which are quite loose and wobble when you are treading on them. After half an hour of such walking a giddiness seizes you, and a strong desire comes over you to kneel down and scramble along on hands and knees to the next hut. But with practice, and a certain amount of patience and indifference to the {21} nasty fall one would get by slipping, walking can eventually be accomplished with ease. [Illustration 5: THE ISLAND OF ELEVERA FROM THE MISSION STATION, PORT MORESBY, BRITISH NEW GUINEA.] The natives themselves run along the poles as quickly as if they were on paved streets, whilst the little kiddies scramble, and slip, and tumble about as if they were on an ordinary floor. A fall through the piles is almost an unknown calamity to them. Under the houses, when the tide is out, the natives can be seen cutting out their canoes, making their pottery, repairing their fishing gear and attending to other duties; but they much prefer to loll about on the verandahs of their huts, looking out at the sea, thinking of nothing.