Page:Scented isles and coral gardens- Torres Straits, German New Guinea and the Dutch East Indies, by C.D. Mackellar, 1912.pdf/220

174 a scornful laugh at the tiny crucifix attached to it. "All same missionary man that!" His boys liked the beads, and he graciously allowed me to give them to them and that is what came of my endeavours to "trade." A certain stony red bead was high in favour and quite the fashion, but the smartest of the smart, those who really wish to shine in society,go in for keys. They have just entered the Iron Age—anything in iron is precious to them. But the very highest mark of fashion is to wear a huge bunch of heavy, rusty, old iron doorkeys tied by a string round the waist and dangling at one side. It implies that at home they have countless large chests full of tobacco and other wealth, even though they have none. To see an absolutely naked savage come strutting along full of pride and affectation with a huge bunch of keys dangling at one side is very funny. Matches, too, they would trade anything for. A thing that quite fascinated them was my round shaving-glass, one of those mirrors that make your face look large or small according to the side you use. I used to flash this out of the porthole at them, and when they darted up in their canoes, would reverse it, and their ecstasy at seeing their faces broadened out was intense. They sighed for this thing, offered me their very canoes and all their contents in exchange. Unluckily I could not do without it.

It is curious to think that any of these friendly, interesting people you talk to with quite a liking would think nothing, two minutes later, of striking you dead with their axe, and then cutting you up and eating you. Numbers of the natives of New Guinea have probably partaken of human flesh.

Mr. Romilly saw, and has described in one of his books, a cannibal feast. First, the women wash the body and scrape the hair off, and cut the