The spear in most common use tapers to a point at each end, more suddenly in front and very gradually behind where it usually terminates in a small knob with two or three ornamental rings.  Sometimes a grommet, or ring of cordage, is worked upon the spear near one end, to prevent the hand slipping when making a thrust.  There are many other kinds of spears variously barbed on one or both sides near the head.  The fishing spear is usually headed by a bundle of about four or six slender, sharp-pointed pieces of wood, two feet in length, sometimes barbed at the point.

We obtained three clubs here—­the only ones seen—­one, closely resembling the stone-headed club of Darnley Island, consists of a wooden shaft, four feet long, sharp pointed at one end and at the other passing through a hole in the centre of a sharp-edged circular disk of quartz, shaped like a quoit, four inches in diameter; the second is twenty-seven inches in length, cut out of a heavy piece of wood, leaving a slender handle and cylindrical head, three and a half inches long, studded with knobs; the remaining one, a less formidable weapon than the others, is flat on both sides, with a serrated edge, and measures twenty-two inches in length and three in width.

ORNAMENTS.

The ornaments worn on this part of the coast are in general so precisely similar to those of the Louisiade, already described, that a brief allusion to them is sufficient.  In both places we saw the same nose-sticks, combs stuck in the hair, flat circular earrings, woven and shell armlets, round ornaments made of melon shell, necklaces of dog’s teeth and black seeds, and white cowries strung round the legs, arms, and neck.  I observed here none of the human jaw bones worn as bracelets so frequently met with in the Louisiade, nor did painting the body appear to be carried to the same extent, although the mode of doing so was the same.  Here too we sometimes saw the hair collected and twisted behind into a single or double queue, and procured a neatly constructed bushy wig of frizzled hair.  A girdle of split rattan wound about a dozen times round the waist is in common use here, but I do not recollect having seen it in the Louisiade.

MANUFACTURES.

Among other articles of native manufacture I may mention large baked earthen pots* used in cooking, also very neatly made round flat-bottomed baskets in sets of four, partially fitting into each other, with a woven belt to suspend them from the shoulders by—­in these various small articles are carried, among them the spatula and calabash, with lime to be used in betel chewing—­and a netted bag, a foot and a half in width and one in depth.  Their rope is beautifully made of the long tough stringy bark of a tree, strongly twisted and laid up in three strands, and for finer lines and twine a kind of flax, resembling the New Zealand, but still more the Manila sort, is used here.  The finest sample of the prepared material which I saw measured eleven feet in length,