had two revolvers at my belt, and I also carried a long, lithe Malacca cane, armed at one end with a formidable knob of lead worked over with string. I considered, therefore, that in a fair stand-up fight I should be able to give a good account of myself. However, there was no hostile appearance on the part of the natives and the chief placed me on his left-hand side, and thus, followed by a yelling rabble, we struck inland. For about four miles we marched through a forest, till we suddenly came to a clearing where there was a village screened by tall palms from the fierce rays of the sun.
"We struck inland."
My arrival was the signal for a general rush from the huts of crowds of natives―men, women, and children. They pressed forward with eager curiosity, examined me from head to foot, made remarks one to the other, and yelled in a perfectly diabolical manner. But presently the king seemed to get angry, and he uttered a sort of war-whoop, while his suite, with a sweep of the heavy sticks they carried, scattered the crowd and made a passage through them. I was then led to a large shed or hut, which I gathered was the Grand Council Chamber, where weighty social and political matters were discussed and the head-hunting expeditions planned. The roof of this building was composed of palm leaves and some species of grass dyed various colours. It was supported by stems of young palm-trees, also ornamented with coloured grasses, which had a most pleasing effect. The walls were composed of sticks and flag-leaves, thickly plastered with mud on the outside. The floor was covered with matting, dyed yellow, and worked into a striking pattern by means of different coloured feathers. At the main entrance was a tall bamboo pole crowned with a human head. The head had belonged to a powerful chief who had been killed in battle, and the victors preserved his skull as a trophy. A little later, during an investigation I made, I found, in a heap at the back of the Council House, a large number of skulls and human bones. Many of the skulls were marked with dints of the tomahawk, thus showing how the victims had been slain. That their bodies had also been eaten there can be little doubt. And in this connection I may mention that, in 1882, New Britain was visited officially by Captain C. Bridge, R.N., and he reports that the inhabitants of that island are the only cannibals he knows of who are not ashamed of their taste for human flesh.
When the king and I and his suite had crossed the portal of the Council Chamber, I was glad to see that a number of men were stationed outside armed with clubs to keep the crowd off. The air was thick with mosquitoes, gnats, sandflies, and other insects. Seeing that they annoyed me, my host ordered one of his attendants to wave over my head a fan made of a palm-leaf attached to a long handle. The chief then squatted on his haunches on a raised platform which ran half-way round the building,
