the captured game was roasting, and heaps of sugar-canes of various kinds and sizes—some of the canes being fifteen feet long—were lying about. We were introduced to several chiefs, who gave us a hearty welcome and a hospitable invitation to join their feast. Some sugarcane—which was of excellent quality, and much more refreshing than creek water, by the way—sufficed for our own moderate needs; but the boys had no objections to enjoying another spell and a feast of kangaroo roasted whole. After a friendly smoke and chat with the hunters, who urged upon our leader that we must not omit visiting their villages on our return journey, we and our dusky entertainers parted company on the best of terms.
The Koiaris are, as a general rule, people of small stature, but well built and muscular, and their condition indicates that they have an ample supply of nourishing food.
Our route now lay along the tops of ridges, and still ascending, we soon reached a razor-back range above 800 feet high. Although it was the season of the south-east wind, when the atmosphere is always more or less hazy, we enjoyed the wonderful panorama spread out at our feet. To the north-west we could trace the course of the Laloki River for miles, descry the junction of the Laloki and Goldie, about five miles distant, and a couple of miles beyond that again the crossing place on the old diggers "track." On the northern horizon loomed a high mountain, upon the summit of which (as our guide informed us) stands the village of the tribe that speared and robbed Mr. Morrison, the explorer. Its distance from where we stood was some seven or eight miles, and this fact indicates the extent of Morrison's party's exploration of the interior. Behind us, to the east and north-east, the serried ridges of the Astrolobe Range stretched away for miles and miles, their wooded slopes and rugged gullies being lost to view, at length, in clouds and mist. Southward in the far distance we could discern the faint outline of the coast range that hems in Port Moresby, whilst in the opposite quarter of the horizon, in the direction of the Rano Falls, the rocky and precipitous face of Mount Vedura towered full 2,000 feet above us. A magnificent scene, not to be forgotten by the spectators. Mentally
