All along the beach, it was almost a continuous row of man alternating with fire, the dun-coloured mats being nearly invisible against the sand in the full moonlight. It must have been a very light sleep for every now and then, a man stirred, peeping up from under his shell, re-adjusting the fire, and casting a searching glance over the surroundings. It would be difficult to say whether mosquitoes or cold wind or fear of sorcery disturbed their sleep most, but I should say the last.
The next morning, early, and without any warning, the whole fleet sailed away. At about 8 o’clock the last canoe punted towards the offing, where they stepped their mast and hoisted their sail. There were no farewell gifts, no conch shell blowing, and the Dobuans this time left their resting place as they had come, without ceremony or display. The morning after, the Nabwagetans followed them.
I was left in the village with a few cripples, the women and one or two men who had remained perhaps to look after the village, perhaps specially to keep watch over me and see that I did no mischief. Not one of them was a good informant.
Through a mistake of mine, I had missed the cutter which had come two days before to the island of Gumasila and left without me. With bad luck and bad weather, I might have had to wait a few weeks, if not months in Nabwageta. I could perhaps have sailed in a native canoe, but this could only be done without bedding, tent, or even writing outfit and photographic apparatus, and so my travelling would have been quite useless.
It was a piece of great good luck that a day or two afterwards, a motor launch, whose owner had heard about my staying in the Amphletts, anchored in front of Nabwageta village, and within an hour I was speeding towards the Trobriands again, following the tracks of the Kula fleet.
II
On the next morning, as we slowly made our way along the channels in the opalescent, green lagoon, and as I watched a fleet of small, local canoes fishing in their muddy waters, and could recognise on the surrounding flat shores a dozen well-known villages, my spirits rose, and I felt well pleased to have left the picturesque, but ethnographically barren Amphletts for the Trobriands, with their scores of excellent informants.
Moreover, the Amphletts, in the persons of their male inhabitants were soon to join me here. I went ashore in Sinaketa, where everybody was full of the great moment which was soon to arrive. For the Dobuan fleet was known to be coming, though on that morning, so far, no news had reached them of its whereabouts. As a matter of fact, the Dobuans, who had left Nabwageta forty-eight hours ahead of me, had made a slow journey with light winds, and sailing a course to the East of mine, had arrived that morning only in Vakuta.
All the rumours which had been reported to me in the Amphletts about the previous movements of the Trobriand natives had been correct. Thus the natives of Vakuta had really been to the East, to Kitava, and had brought with them a big haul of armshells. To’uluwa, the chief of Kiriwina, had visited Kitava later, and about five or six days before had returned from there, bringing with him 213 pairs of armshells. The Sinaketans then had gone to Kiriwina, and out of the 213 pairs had succeeded in securing 154. As there had been previously 150 pairs in Sinaketa, a total of 304 was awaiting the Dobuans. On the morning of my arrival, the Sinaketan party had just returned from Kiriwina, hurrying home so as to have everything ready for the reception of the Dobuans. Of these, we got the news that very afternoon—news which travelled