CHAPTER VIII
INACTION AND AN EXCURSION
Period of Inaction at Port Moresby—Christmas in New Guinea—A Scratch Dinner—A Christmas Privilege for Cingalese to obtain Spirits—Curious Effect on One Individual—A Noteworthy Character—An Excursion to Hula—A Fisher Community—A Piebald People—Picturesque Night Fishing by Flare Light—Fishermen often Killed by Gare-fish—Hula Houses—Various Traits of Native Life—A Walk round Hood’s Bay—Traces of Initiatory Rites at Kalo—The Kalo Houses described—On to Kerapuna—A Shooting Expedition—We lose the Trail—Class Distinctions at Kerapuna—Return to Port Moresby by Sea—A Perilous Voyage in a Little Canoe—Tragic Death of Flood, the Naturalist.