The men are not much disturbed by our arrival. They offer us a log to sit on, and continue to rub their yam, talking us over the while. They seem to be a very peaceful and friendly crowd, yet in this district they are particularly cruel and treacherous, and only a few days after my departure war broke out. The gamal is bare, except for a few wooden dishes hanging in the roof, and weapons of all kinds, not in full sight, but ready at any moment. We can see rifles, arrows and clubs. The clubs are very simple, either straight or curved sticks. Old pieces are highly valued, and carry marks indicating how many victims have been killed with them: I saw one club with sixty-seven of these marks. In former years the spear with about two hundred and fifty points of human bones was much used, but is now quite replaced by the rifle. The bones for spear-points and arrow-heads are taken from the bodies of dead relatives and high-castes. The corpse is buried in the house, and when it is decayed the bones of the limbs are dug out, split, polished and used for weapons. The idea is that the courage and skill of the dead man may be transmitted to the owner of the weapon, also, that the dead man may take revenge on his murderer, as every death is considered to have been caused by some enemy. These bones are naturally full of the poisons of the corpse, and may cause tetanus at the slightest scratch. On the arrows they are extremely sharp and only slightly attached to the wood, so that they stick in the flesh and increase the inflammation. Besides, they are often dipped in some special poison. All over the archipelago the arrows are very carefully made, and almost every island has its own type, although they all resemble each other. Many are covered at the point with a fine spiral binding, and the small triangles thus formed are painted in rows--red, green and white. Much less care is bestowed on the fish- and bird-arrows, which are three-pointed as a rule, and often have no point at all, but only a knob, so as to stun the bird and not to stick in the branches of the trees. Shields are unknown. It would seem that the arrow was not, as elsewhere, the principal weapon, but rather the spear and club, and the wars were not very deadly, as the natives' skill in handling their weapons was equalled by their skill in dodging them.