The natives showed great reluctance in bringing me skulls and skeletons. As the bones decay very quickly in the tropics, only skulls of people recently deceased can be had. The demon, or soul, of the dead is supposed to be too lively as yet to be wantonly offended; in any case, one dislikes to disturb one's own relatives, while there is less delicacy about those of others. Still, in course of time, I gathered quite a good collection of skulls at the station. They were brought carefully wrapped up in leaves, fastened with lianas, and tied to long sticks, with which the bearer held the disgusting object as far from him as possible. The bundles were laid down, and the people watched with admiring disgust as I untied the ropes and handled the bones as one would any other object. Everything that had touched the bones became to the natives an object of the greatest awe; still they enjoyed pushing the leaves that had wrapped them up under the feet of an unsuspecting friend, who presently, warned of the danger, escaped with a terrified shriek and a wild jump. It would seem that physical disgust had as much to do with all this as religious fear, although the natives show none of this disgust at handling the remains of pigs. Naturally, the old men were the most superstitious; the young ones were more emancipated, some of them even going the length of picking up a bone with their toes. Most of them had quite a similar dread of snakes, but some men handled them without much fear, and brought me large specimens, which they had caught in a sling and then wrapped up in leaves. While I killed and skinned a big snake, a large crowd always surrounded me, ever ready for flight, and later my boys chased them with the empty skin, a performance which always ended in great laughing and dancing. I had been in Port Olry for three weeks, waiting anxiously every day for the Marie-Henry, which was to bring the luggage I had left behind at the Segond Channel. My outfit began to be insufficient; what I needed most was chemicals for the preservation of my zoological specimens, which I had plenty of time and occasion to collect here. One day the Marie-Henry, a large schooner, arrived, but my luggage had been forgotten. I was much disappointed, as I saw no means of recovering it in the near future. The Marie-Henry was bound for Talamacco, in Big Bay, and took the Rev. Father and myself along.