Difficulties of Food—Coolies’ Rations—Choice of Provisions—Transporting Supplies up the Mimika—Description of the River—A Day’s Work—Monotonous Scenery—Crowned Pigeons—Birds of Paradise and Others—Snakes, Bees and other Creatures—Rapids and Clear Water—The Seasons—Wind—Rain—Thunderstorms—Halley’s Comet.

One of the principal obstacles in the way of successful exploration in Dutch New Guinea is the lack of food in the country itself. It is true that in the low-lying swampy districts near the coast there are plenty of Sago-palms, but the majority of Malays are not sago eaters except under compulsion, and the preparation of sago to make it only tolerably palatable is a tedious business. Moreover the first object of an expedition to the mountains is to leave the swamps behind as soon as possible. So it follows that every scrap of food, for the coolies as well as for the Europeans, has to be brought into the country from outside, and it will be evident that, when the means of transport are distressingly slow, the provisions must diminish considerably in quantity as they are carried towards the interior.

The mainstay of the food of Malay coolies and soldiers is rice, of which the daily ration is one katti (1-1/3 pounds); to this is added about a quarter of a pound of dried meat or dried fish. Once or twice a week the rice was replaced by kachang ijau, a small round green bean, which is supposed to be of use in preventing the onset of beri-beri, though it is very doubtful whether this is the case; the beans are boiled and are eaten either with salt or with brown Javanese sugar. A full ration for a coolie also includes tea, coffee, salt and chillies. When it is remembered that the numbers of the expedition were never less than one hundred and twenty and were often more than one hundred and sixty, and since it was considered advisable always to have a supply for several months in advance in the eventuality of communication with Amboina becoming impossible, it can be imagined that the amount of stores necessary for the whole party was no small thing. The management of the stores of Cramer’s party alone, of which every detail had to be accounted for to the Government, occupied the full time of a Dutch sergeant and a native clerk.

Not only was a great deal of labour involved in dealing with such an immense bulk of stores, but there was considerable difficulty in preserving them from the ill effects of the climate. Our first consignment of rice arrived in sacks, and the futility of that method of packing was apparent, when a great quantity of it was spoilt by a shower of rain between the steamer and the base-camp. The next lot was packed in tins with lids; when these were turned upside down the rice trickled out or water trickled in, and again a large quantity was lost or spoilt. After that it was put into tins of which the tops were soldered down, but even that was not quite successful, for it often happened that a pin-hole was left unsoldered, through which moisture would eventually find its way and the rice be spoilt.

Even more difficult than the rice to keep dry were the dried fish and dried meat, which were sent to us packed in wooden boxes; the stuff quickly became sodden from the moisture-laden atmosphere, and although we kept coolies constantly employed in drying it in the sun, an enormous amount of it became rotten and was thrown away. The only effectual method of preserving the dried meat and fish is to seal it up like the rice in soldered tins. The tin always used for this purpose is the rectangular tin in which kerosene oil is imported to the East; filled with rice it weighs about forty pounds.

In writing the history of this expedition I should not be honest if I were to refrain from mentioning the fact that some of our own stores were, to say the least, ill-chosen. It appeared that a large quantity of stores had been bought from the Shackleton Expedition, which had returned from the Antarctic a few months before we left England. However suitable those provisions may have been for a Polar expedition, they were not the sort of thing one would have chosen for a journey in the Tropics. For instance, large tins of “bully-beef” are excellent in a cold climate, but when you open them near the Equator you find that they consist of pallid lumps of pink flesh swimming in a nasty gravy. Pea-soup and pea-flour, of which we had nearly four hundred pounds’ weight, strike terror into the stoutest heart, when the temperature is 86° in the shade. Pickles are all very well in their way for those that like them, but one hundred and sixty bottles was more than a generous allowance. Punch, in commenting on a newspaper misprint which stated that “the British Ornithologists Union Expedition to Papua was joined at Singapore by ten pickled Gurkhas,” suggested that it was “no doubt a misprint for gherkins.” We were glad that Mr. Punch was mistaken and that we had not increased our store of pickles at Singapore.

The packing was almost as remarkable as the choice of the stores themselves: they were secured in strong packing cases of large and variable size fastened with bands of iron and an incredible number of nails, suitable enough to withstand the banging of Polar storms, but not well adapted to their present purpose. The boxes were all too big for convenient transport, and as each one was filled with food of one kind only every box had to be opened at once and a selection made from them.

Here it must be said that, in response to our comments on the stores and the packing, the Committee sent out to us an excellent supply of provisions from Messrs. Fortnum and Mason, properly packed in light “Vanesta” cases. These reached us at the end of August and during the rest of our stay in the country we fared well.

We took with us a small supply of whisky and brandy, which was often acceptable, and I believe that in an excessively damp climate a small quantity of alcohol may be beneficial. The Dutch took with them dry Hollands gin, which is drunk with a small quantity of bitters before dinner; it certainly has the effect of coaxing your appetite for tinned foods, all of which, when you have lived on them for a few months, have the same dull taste.

It may be thought that the above discourse on the subject of food is unduly long, but I shall make no apology for it, because equally with the question of transport the question of food is of paramount importance. The recital of some of the mistakes that we made may serve as a warning to others, who wish to visit a similar district. In countries like Africa and many parts of Asia, where the people cultivate the soil and where there are numbers of game animals, you may always look forward to varying your fare with some fresh food, either animal or vegetable; but when you go to New Guinea you must be prepared to live wholly on dried and tinned foods, and that is only possible when they are varied and of the best manufacture.

During the first months of our stay in New Guinea most of the energies of the expedition were spent in transporting supplies from the base-camp at Wakatimi to the camp at Parimau up the Mimika River. And indeed it may be said that this was one of the principal occupations of the expedition from beginning to end; for our coolies were very soon worn out by sickness and the unaccustomed labour, so that they had to be sent back to their homes, and by the time that a fresh batch of coolies arrived in the country the store of provisions at Parimau was exhausted and the process of taking up a fresh supply had to be begun again.

It was not until our third batch of coolies came at the end of December, that we were able to accumulate enough stores at Parimau to serve as a base for a moderately long expedition from that place. Before that time it had never been possible to make a longer march than three days from Parimau, and there had been long periods when from lack of coolies everything had been at a standstill. Those times were of course excessively trying both to the health and to the tempers of the members of the expedition. It was irksome beyond words to see day after day the mountains in the distance and to be unable to move a step nearer to them.

The distance from Wakatimi to Parimau, though only twenty-two miles as the crow flies, was about forty miles by water, and it took from five to seven days, according to the state of the river, to accomplish the journey in canoes. While the coolies were still comparatively fresh, we sometimes sent off as many as six canoes at a time from Wakatimi to Parimau, but with sickness and fatigue their numbers quickly diminished and two or three canoes laden with stores, accompanied by one “escort” canoe manned by Javanese soldiers and convicts, was the size of the usual river “transport.” The larger canoes were paddled by five or six and the smaller by four men; the average load carried by one canoe was about eight hundred pounds’ weight, of which a considerable amount was consumed on the journey. The men were given one day’s rest at Parimau, they came down the river in two days and rested for two days at Wakatimi before starting up the river again. One of us accompanied them on nearly every journey with a view to preventing the men from lingering too many days on the voyage and partly as a protection from the natives, who paid great respect to us but were inclined to behave rudely to the coolies, if they were not accompanied by an European.

Those days of canoeing up the Mimika River were some of the most monotonous of my life and I shall never forget them. For the first few miles above Wakatimi the river is about as wide as the Thames at Windsor, the banks are covered with smallish trees with here and there clumps of palm trees, from which fresh young coconuts may be gathered. Occasionally the rising tide helps you on your way, and if you are particularly fortunate you may even see at the end of a straight reach of the river a glimpse of the distant mountains. But very soon the river narrows to half its width, the huge trees of the regular New Guinea jungle shut out all except a narrow strip of sky, and the river twists and meanders towards all the points of the compass, until you wonder whether it will not eventually bring you back to the point whence you started. There was one bend of the river which was particularly remarkable; it made an almost complete circle of about a mile and a half in circumference, ending at a point exactly forty yards distant from its commencement, so that by landing and walking across a narrow neck you could wait for more than half an hour for the canoes to overtake you.

The rate of travel varied with the efficiency of the coolies and according to the strength of the current in the river, which was sometimes very sluggish, and at other times came swirling down at three or four miles an hour. We cleared camping places at various points along the river, and, if the pace was good, the average stage was about six hours, though it often took ten or even twelve hours when the river was in flood. The pleasantest camping places were on mudbanks, where the coolies could bathe and pitch their tents without trouble, but they were very liable to be flooded by a sudden rise of the river during the night, and we generally had our own tents pitched on a space cleared in the jungle at the top of a steep bank.

It will be convenient to describe a day’s voyage up the Mimika by taking an extract from my diary:—

“May 13. The monotony of the river is beyond words, and one day is almost exactly like another. I get up at six o’clock and breakfast off cocoa and biscuits and butter, whilst the camp is coming down, i.e. tents, etc., being packed. Spend the next hour or rather more in hurrying on the coolies with their food, which they ought always to begin to cook half an hour earlier than they do. See everything put into the canoes and then start with the last. After that anything from five to twelve hours’ sitting on a damp tent with one’s feet in more or less (according to the weather) water swishing from side to side of the canoe. Sometimes I paddle, but not so much now as I did the first time I came up the river, not from laziness but because the irregular time is so horribly irritating. If the coolies would only paddle lazily but regularly all would be well, but they will not; they paddle all together furiously for perhaps twenty or thirty strokes and then vary between a haphazard rag-time and doing nothing at all.

“Most of the time I watch the banks go by and wonder how long it will take us to get to the end of this reach, which bears a remarkable resemblance to the last and to the next. The jungle is as ugly as it can be, rank undergrowth, trailing rattans and scraggy rotting trees. In forty miles I do not think there are half a dozen big trees worth looking at. Very occasionally you see a flowering creeper, one with clusters of white flowers is here and there, and I have seen a few of the gorgeous flaming D’Albertis creeper (Mucuna pruriens). Butterflies are seldom seen and birds one hardly hears at all. The banks are steep slimy brown mud, littered with the trunks and limbs of rotten trees, which also stick up all over the river like horrid muddy bones.

“Altogether it is as gloomy and depressing as it can be, there is no view, not even a glimpse to shew that we are getting near a mountain range. In the midst of all this it generally rains hard and you arrive in camp soaking wet. Then see everything taken out of the canoes, tents pitched, canoes securely moored, food given out to the coolies, and by that time it is well on into the afternoon. Wet wood is somehow coaxed into boiling a kettle and I get a cup of tea, very good. At six o’clock the meal of the day, rice or a tin, but one eats very little on these journeys. After dinner a book and tobacco and to bed about nine o’clock, or earlier if the mosquitoes are troublesome. It does not compare favourably with being ‘on safari’ in Africa, and I frequently wish myself back on one of those interminable roads which I have so often cursed.”

But it must not be supposed that there were not occasional pleasant moments, which to some extent were compensation for the monotony of those days. Sometimes you saw a Crowned Pigeon (Goura sclateri) by the water’s edge, and by paddling quietly you could approach within a few yards before it flew lazily across the river and alighted on a low branch. The Crowned Pigeon is one of the handsomest of New Guinea birds; it is as big as a large domestic fowl, of an uniform mauve grey colour with a large white patch on the wings, and on its head is a crest of delicate grey plumes, which it opens and shuts like a fan. These birds feed mostly on fruits, but they also eat small molluscs and crabs, which they pick up on the river bank. As they were almost the only eatable birds in the country, we killed a good many of them, but their numbers appeared to be in no way diminished when we left the country; the flesh is white and excessively dry.

The little red King Bird of Paradise (Cicinnurus regius) is heard calling everywhere, and from the upper waters of the river you hear the harsh cry of the Greater Bird of Paradise (Paradisea novae guineae), but both of these are birds of the dense forest and I do not remember ever having seen one from the river.

Green and red Eclectus Parrots (Eclectus pectoralis) and white Lemon-crested Cockatoos are fairly numerous and their harsh screams, though sufficiently unpleasing are a welcome interruption of the prevailing silence.

Lories were not often seen on the river journeys, but they were extremely common near Wakatimi, where a certain clump of trees was used by them as a regular roosting-place. For an hour or more before sunset countless hundreds of Lories (Eos fuscata) flew in flocks from all directions towards the roosting-trees, chattering loudly as they flew and even louder after they had perched. Often a branch would give way under the living weight and then the whole throng would rise in the air again and circle round and round before they alighted once more and the shouting and chattering continued until it was dark.

Crocodiles were very seldom seen, but Iguanas of two or three feet in length were often seen sunning themselves on a log or a stump, from which they would splash hurriedly into the water as the canoes approached. Several times at night I heard a splash as loud as the plunge of a man into water, but I could never discover what was the animal that caused it; there may yet possibly be some large unknown reptile in the river. Snakes were sometimes seen curled up in the overhanging vegetation and very commonly they were found swimming in the water; one day I counted eleven small harmless snakes swimming within half a mile of the same place.

On many days during the months of May and June the river swarmed with large bright yellow flies very similar to, but about twice the size of, the Green Drake of the fly-fisher. They hatched out about mid-day and took longer or shorter flights over the water, rising from it and alighting again like miniature aeroplanes. Many of them fell a prey to swallows and bee-eaters and other insect-eating birds, while the rest were quickly drowned, and I have seen long stretches of the river completely covered by the dead insects.

At some of the camps on the river and elsewhere we were a good deal bothered by small bees, the Stingless Honey-bee (Melipona praeterita). These annoying little creatures—they are about half the size of the common house-fly—buzzed about you in swarms and strove most persistently to settle on any exposed part of your body in pursuit of the sweat, which is never absent from you in those places. No matter how you beat about and killed them they were back again immediately and once, while writing, I kept my hands quite still on the book and in a few moments I counted forty-six on my two hands before their crawling became unbearable. They have a disagreeably sticky feeling as they crawl over you and your hands, when you have squashed a number of them, become sticky too.

At night, when the rain was not drumming ceaselessly on the roof of the tent, the silence was broken now and then by the grating call of a Brush Turkey (Talegallus fuscirostris)6; or a flock of Pale Crows (Gymnocorax senex), which are curiously nocturnal in their habits, would fly over the camp cawing like muffled rooks. Lizards and frogs uttered all sorts of strange cries and whistles, and the mournful unbirdlike note of the Frogmouth (Podargus papuensis) was heard on every side.

Sometimes, even when there was no wind stirring, you would hear at night a noise like thunder as some great tree went crashing down. Most of the trees in the jungle do not attain a very great girth, but they grow up very rapidly to reach the light and in their upper branches there is soon accumulated a dense mass of climbers and parasitic plants, which in the course of time become too heavy for the tree and cause it to collapse. The floor of the jungle is strewn with the limbs and trunks of fallen trees and the smell of rotting wood is everywhere.

The last, usually the fifth, day of the journey up the river was always pleasant, partly because one knew that there were only a few more hours of the tedious voyage, and partly because the scenery was beginning to change. Beautiful Tree-ferns appeared upon the banks and the soil, firmer than in the swampy lands near the coast, supported trees of finer growth. Scattered pebbles and then banks of clean sand and shingle began to take the place of the hideous mud of the lower river, and after spending, as frequently happened, many weeks at Wakatimi, where the smallest pebble would have been an object of wonder, it was a peculiar pleasure to feel the grit of stones under your feet again. At the same time the cocoa-brown water became clear and sparkling and one drank it for the very pleasure of drinking. Going further we came to rapids, where the river ran over stones, or piled-up barriers of fallen trees. Passages were cut through many of these obstacles, but every succeeding flood brought down more trees and new barriers were formed.

When the river was low, the last four miles to Parimau were covered by wading and hauling the canoes over or under the great logs. Every man had to get out of the canoe and do his share of the work, and sometimes we had to take the cargo out as well, when the canoe had to be dragged over a particularly high obstacle. When the river was in flood, the last day’s journey was the most arduous of all, and it sometimes took twelve or fourteen hours’ hard labour to accomplish it. The water was then too deep for poling, and the current was so swift that vigorous paddling hardly did more than prevent the canoe from following the stream, and it was only by dodging from one side of the river to the other and by hauling on overhanging branches that progress was made.

Considering the want of skill of the coolies and the great number of journeys that were made up and down the river, it was wonderful that no accidents of any consequence occurred. It is true that a good many canoes capsized—I think all of us had at least one involuntary ducking—but a well-laden canoe is comparatively steady, and most of the upsets happened to empty canoes going down the river and nothing was lost but coolies’ scanty baggage, which was easily replaced. The Javanese coolies of the escort, who were even less skilled watermen than ours, suffered rather more accidents, but one boat-load of provisions and two rifles were the total of their losses.

There were periods, lasting for several weeks, when the river was almost continually in flood, and there were other, but always shorter, periods when the river was low; but though we spent fifteen months in New Guinea the time was not long enough to determine at all accurately the limits of the seasons, for the first three months of 1911 differed considerably from the corresponding months of the previous year. Speaking generally, it may be said of the Mimika district that the weather from mid-October to the middle of April is finer than the weather from the middle of April to the middle of October. These two periods correspond more or less with the monsoons, but it is notable that whereas in British New Guinea the period of the Eastern monsoon, May to November, is the drier, here the reverse is the case. The finest weather appears to be in November and December, and the wettest weather is in July, August and September. The terms “fine” and “wet” are used only relatively, for it is almost always wet. In the first twelve months of our stay rain fell on three hundred and thirty days. It was very unfortunate that we did not provide ourselves with rain-gauges for use at Wakatimi and Parimau, where interesting observations might have been recorded for a year or more. A roughly constructed rain-gauge, which was used for a short time, more than once recorded a fall of over six inches of rain in one night, and that was in the comparatively dry season of March.

A great deal of the rain fell in thunderstorms. From January 4th, 1910, to January 4th, 1911, I heard thunder on two hundred and ninety-five days, not including days on which I saw distant lightning but did not hear the thunder.

Before we left England it was thought that the party ought to include a geologist, but it was impossible to add to our numbers, which were already sufficiently great. As it fell out, we hardly reached geological country at all and a geologist would have spent an idle time, but there would have been plenty of occupation for a well equipped hydrologist.

The winds, whether from the East or from the West, were very variable both in force and constancy. Sometimes there would blow a fierce wind for two or three days followed by several days of calm. At other times a steady wind would blow for two or three weeks and so great would be the surf on the sea-shore that no ship could approach the mouth of the river. The wind usually dropped before sunset and the nights were calm.

It followed naturally from the heavy rainfall that the nights were seldom clear, and at one time Marshall waited for three months before he could take an observation from a star. But there were times even in the wet weather, when the rain poured down during the day and at night the heavens were clear. One of these times fortunately occurred in May, when Halley’s Comet was approaching the Earth. On May 9th the comet, looking like a muffled star, was seen in the East and its tail, a broad beam of brilliant light, extended upwards through about thirty degrees. Below the comet and a little to the South of it Venus shone like a little moon, appearing far bigger than any planet I have ever seen. The comet grew enormously and in the early morning of May 14th, the last time that we saw it completely before it had passed the Earth, the tail blazed across the heavens like an immense search-light beam to the zenith and beyond. On May 26th it appeared again in the evening, reduced in size to about forty-five degrees, and several nights we watched it growing always smaller, until it vanished from our sight. Superlative expressions will not describe Halley’s Comet as we saw it in New Guinea; it was a wonderful appearance and one never to be forgotten. Our coolies and the Javanese declared that it portended much sickness and death. Though we tried to question them about it, we never learnt how it impressed the minds of the natives.