the western Solomon Islands, including those of that old centre
of the head hunters, the Rubiana lagoon, and a preparatory and
instructive journey in New Guinea among the large villages of the
Mekeo district, I struck across country by a little known route,
via Lapeka, to Ido-Ido and on to Dilava, and thus passed by way of
further preparation through the Kuni country, and ultimately reached
the district of the Mafulu villages, of whose people very little was
known, and which was therefore the mecca of my pilgrimage.

I endeavoured to carry out the enquiries of which the book is a record
as carefully and accurately as possible; but it must be remembered
that the Mafulu people had seen very few white men, except some
of the Fathers of the Catholic Mission of the Sacred Heart, the
visits of Government officials and once or twice of a scientific
traveller having been but few and far between, and only short; that
the mission station in Mafulu (the remotest station of the mission)
had only been established five years previously; that the people
were utterly unaccustomed to the type of questioning which systematic
ethnological enquiry involves, and that necessarily there was often
the usual hesitation in giving the required information.

I cannot doubt, therefore, that future enquiries and investigations
made in the same district will bring to light errors and
misunderstandings, which even with the greatest care can hardly be
avoided in the case of a first attempt on new ground, where everything
has to be investigated and worked up from the beginning. I hope,
however, that the bulk of my notes will be found to have been correct
in substance so far as they go.

I regret that my ignorance of tropical flora and fauna has made it