The Cliffs Above The Sea Offered To Our
View Screw-Pines And Arborescent Liliaceae Of Strange Forms,
Mingled With Shrubs And Creepers; While The Higher Slopes
Supported A Dense Growth Of Forest Trees.
Here and there little
bays and inlets presented beaches of dazzling whiteness.
The
water was transparent as crystal, and tinged the rock-strewn
slope which plunged steeply into its unfathomable depths with
colours varying from emerald to lapis-lazuli. The sea was calm as
a lake, and the glorious sun of the tropics threw a flood of
golden light over all. The scene was to me inexpressibly
delightful. I was in a new world, and could dream of the
wonderful productions hid in those rocky forests, and in those
azure abysses. But few European feet had ever trodden the shores
I gazed upon its plants, and animals, and men were alike almost
unknown, and I could not help speculating on what my wanderings
there for a few days might bring to light.
CHAPTER XXIX
THE KE ISLANDS.
(JANUARY 1857)
THE native boats that had come to meet us were three or four in
number, containing in all about fifty men.
They were long canoes, with the bow and stern rising up into a
beak six or night feet high, decorated with shells and waving
plumes of cassowaries hair. I now had my first view of Papuans in
their own country, and in less than five minutes was convinced
that the opinion already arrived at by the examination of a few
Timor and New Guinea slaves was substantially correct, and that
the people I now had an opportunity of comparing side by side
belonged to two of the most distinct and strongly marked races
that the earth contains.
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