Visit of Mr. Lorentz—Arrival of Steam Launch—A Sailor Drowned—Our Second Batch of Coolies—Health of the Gurkhas—Dayaks the best Coolies—Sickness—Arrival of Motor Boat—Camp under Water—Expedition moves to Parimau—Explorations beyond the Mimika—Leeches—Floods on the Tuaba River—Overflowing Rivers—The Wataikwa—Cutting a Track.

A pleasant interlude in the monotony of the early part of the expedition occurred one day towards the end of March, when the natives of Wakatimi signalled in the usual way the approach of a boat and presently a steam launch appeared with Europeans on board. They turned out to be the Dutch explorer, Mr. H. A. Lorentz, who was on his way back from his second and successful expedition to Mount Wilhelmina by way of the Noord River, with his companions Captain J. W. van Nouhuys and Lieutenant Habbema, and the Captain of the Government steamer Java, which had anchored off the mouth of the Mimika. Mr. Lorentz looked like a man hardly returned from the dead, as indeed he well might, for after climbing to the snows of Mount Wilhelmina he had fallen down a cliff on his return, with a result of two broken ribs and serious concussion of the brain, and he had endured untold sufferings on his way back to the foot of the mountain. But he had achieved the principal object of his expedition, and his spirits were in better condition than his body. They stayed for the night with us and at dinner, though I was in a minority of one to six, with characteristic courtesy they all spoke English; the entertainment, assisted by luxuries brought from the Java, lasted until the small hours, and it was the pleasantest evening I spent in New Guinea.

The Java brought for us the long-expected steam launch, and its career began, as it ended, with disaster. Before dawn one of the men of the boat wished to fetch something that he had left on the launch, which was moored in the river about fifteen yards from the bank. The sentry on duty did his best to prevent him, because it was a rule of the camp that no man was allowed to bathe before sunrise, but he insisted on swimming out to the launch. In a few yards he found that the current was stronger than he had expected, he called for help, and in a few moments a canoe set out in the gloom to look for him, but no more was seen of him until his body was recovered by the natives at the mouth of the Mimika a few days later. Shortly after the accident happened our guests left us on their way back to Europe, and we watched their departure with somewhat envious eyes.

The history of the middle period of the expedition, that is to say, from April to December, is chiefly a history of floods and sickness and disappointment. In the middle of April Goodfellow, who had gone away early in March, returned with a fresh batch of forty-eight coolies, whom he had recruited in Banda and Amboina. About a half of these men were natives of the island of Buton, and the rest were Ambonese, and though they were the best men that could be found at such short notice, and were greatly superior to our first batch of coolies, they were really not fit for the work they had to do, and the majority of them soon became useless to us.

The steam launch towed the canoes for a short distance up the river once or twice, but it very soon broke down and thenceforward until the middle of June all the transport between Wakatimi and Parimau was done by the coolies themselves. For them it was literally a killing work; in the first few weeks two men died, one of pneumonia, the other of dysentery, both causes resulting from the circumstances of their work, while several others developed the first signs of beri-beri and had to be sent away at the earliest opportunity.

About the same time one of the Gurkhas died; he was from the beginning a very unhealthy man, who ought not to have been engaged for the expedition. Of the other nine Gurkhas three were invalided home before the end of the year and the remaining six stayed with us until we left the country. Although they came from the highlands of Darjeeling—or perhaps for that very reason—our Gurkhas, who were by no means a carefully selected lot, withstood the trials and the climate of the country better than any of the other “native” people in the expedition and, if expense were no drawback, it is probable that an expedition to New Guinea would have the best chance of success if coolies were taken from Northern India.

That is, however, rather a counsel of perfection, and an expedition to New Guinea must make use of natives of the Malay Archipelago. The Ambonese and the Butonese have been tried and have been found wanting, so also have the KÉ Islanders and the Sundanese from the mountains of central Java. Possibly the wild hillmen of Timor, if enough of them could be engaged, would work well, but the only people who have hitherto worked successfully as coolies in Dutch New Guinea are the hill-Dayaks of Borneo. Mr. Lorentz, who took with him eighty Dayaks, most of them from the Mendalen River, on his expedition to Mount Wilhelmina, spoke with enthusiasm of the admirable behaviour of his men, and if Indian or other Asiatic coolies are not available, it may be said that an expedition to the mountainous districts of Dutch New Guinea can only be properly conducted with Dayaks.

Our coolies were not the only people in the expedition who began to feel the ill effects of the climate; the Javanese soldiers and convicts quickly filled the hospital which had been put up at Wakatimi, and in May and June there were many mornings when I saw more than forty sick men. Most of them suffered from fever and a more or less severe form of dysentery, and a good many cases of beri-beri occurred. Unfortunately sickness was not confined to our native followers only; the Europeans began also to suffer from the very adverse conditions in which they found themselves. One or two of the Dutch non-commissioned officers became seriously ill; Goodfellow, who returned with the second batch of coolies from Banda about the middle of April, was never free from fever for more than a few days from that time until he left the country in October; and Shortridge became such a wreck from almost continuous fever, which began about the beginning of March, that by the end of May he had to be sent away for three months’ change of air to Australia. Soon after his return in August he succumbed again to the evil climate, and though he pluckily pretended that there was nothing the matter with him, he went from bad to worse, and I am fully persuaded that his almost forcible deportation at the end of November saved his life.

At the end of May, Goodfellow and Rawling went over to Dobo, and after about eight days returned with the motor boat, which had been bought from the pearl-fishers. Like most things of which a great deal is expected the motor boat turned out to be a disappointment, and it eventually led us into serious difficulty, but for a short time it did good service in towing boats up the river, and it considerably shortened the voyage from Wakatimi to Parimau.

The day of the arrival of the motor boat was memorable for being the occasion of the first of the really serious floods that beset us. Late in the evening a party of our coolies on their way back from Parimau, who were not due to arrive until the following day, reached the camp at Wakatimi, most of which was by that time under water. The journey down the river usually occupied two days, but they had found all the usual camping places, some of which were high above the ordinary river bed, under water, and they had been unable to find any safe resting-place.

The three following days were among the most unpleasant that I had ever spent, though worse were to follow later. On the morning of the first day the water fell a little and we spent laborious hours in piling up our stores and movable gear on to the top of empty boxes, and when those were all used on posts driven into the ground. All through the afternoon the water rose, the coolies’ and soldiers’ houses were quickly flooded, and our own house, which was on the highest part of the camp, was nearly a foot under water. On the two succeeding days the conditions were much more serious, and we had two feet of water in our house. The river took a short cut over the neck of land formed by a wide bend of the river on which the camp was placed and flowed straight through the camp. Our beds were raised up on empty kerosene-tin boxes, and when these were submerged there was a mild excitement in guessing how far up the frame-work of the bed the water would rise. Fires were put out and cooking was impossible, so the coolies and soldiers, who depended on their boiled rice, had rather a hungry time. Our own food consisted of biscuits and cold tinned stuff, which is not very exhilarating when you have been in water all day long. An unprejudiced observer looking in upon us from the outside in the evening might well have wondered what kind of lunatics we were to come to New Guinea. Goodfellow was lying in bed very sick with fever, while Rawling and I, up to our knees in water, were making a poor pretence at having dinner. The only humour that we managed to extract from the situation was in the novel experience of being able, without moving from our seats, to wash our plates between the first course of biscuits and sardines and the second course of biscuits and marmalade; the Mimika river was flowing under our chairs and we had only to lower our plates into it to clean them.

On the fourth day the water fell, and the camp was not flooded again for several weeks, but there was left everywhere a thick deposit of mud, which kept the houses sodden for a long time afterwards. In spite of all our precautions, a quantity of stores were irreparably spoilt and, worse still, the flood left behind it an increased amount of sickness, and indeed the wonder was that the prolonged soaking had not ill effects on every one of us.

At the beginning of July Cramer and I arrived at Parimau, bringing with us the last loads of provisions to complete the store, which we had been working hard for three months with our second batch of coolies to accumulate at that place. It was hoped that that store would be sufficient to enable us to use Parimau as a second base camp for making a prolonged expedition into the mountains without wasting any more time on transports up the river; but in that we had reckoned without the vagaries of the New Guinea climate and the consequent diminution of the effective strength of our coolies, who were already too few for our purpose.

In the meantime Rawling and Marshall had been making excursions to the North-east of Parimau, in the direction of the high mountains. About five miles from Parimau they had come to the Tuaba River and about the same distance further on they had come to the Kamura River, a few miles above its junction with the Tuaba. Continuing in the same direction they came to another river, bigger than either of the others, the Wataikwa, which was so often impassable that it seemed likely to prevent any further progress. But a short excursion up the valley of the Wataikwa showed the impossibility of reaching the highest mountains by that route, and a camp was accordingly established on the Wataikwa with a view to crossing that river when an opportunity should occur.

These excursions were all made with the assistance of natives, without whose assistance no advance beyond Parimau would have been possible, so long as all the coolies were occupied in the work on the river. Very little reliance could be placed on the natives, when they were working as carriers alone without coolies, and most of us at one time or another had the disagreeable experience of being deserted by them and left unable to move either backwards or forwards. It was in circumstances such as these that the Gurkhas, some of whom always accompanied us in journeys through the jungle, shewed to the best advantage.

When the store of provisions at Parimau was completed, the next step was to establish a further depÔt of provisions at the Wataikwa camp. Though the distance between the two places was less than fifteen miles in a straight line, it was a three days’ march for a loaded coolie and two camping places were made on the way, one on an island in the Tuaba River, the other on the bank of the Kamura. The first day’s march from Parimau began by crossing and recrossing the Mimika several times and here and there wading up the river itself. About three miles up the river we struck off Eastwards through the jungle along a hardly visible native track used by the people going to the village of Ibo; this was the only regular native track we used, and these few miles across from the Mimika to the Tuaba were the only place where we had not to cut our own path. The mud in that part of the jungle was quite exceptionally bad, even for New Guinea; in the comparatively dry weather it was like walking through porridge, and in the wet weather you were continually struggling through liquid slime almost up to your knees.

We were very much annoyed there, though not more in that than in other parts of the jungle, by the leeches which swarmed everywhere. These hateful little creatures sit on the leaves or twigs stretched out to their fullest length and expectant of the passer-by. It is not necessary to believe, as some people do, that they jump or even that they fall upon you as you pass beneath them; there are so many that as you brush through the jungle you must inevitably touch many outstretched heads and as soon as they are touched they attach themselves immediately to you. They are extremely rapid in their movements, and their touch is so delicate that you do not feel their presence until they have nearly gorged themselves with blood. Your legs, unless they are well protected with putties, are most liable to their attacks, but you find leeches on all parts of your body, and I have found them in my eyes and in my mouth and once just captured one as it was preparing to enter one of my nostrils. They are able to consume an astonishingly large quantity of blood, and when, as often happens, they open a small vein, the bleeding continues after they have dropped from their feeding place. It is not advisable to pull a leech from your body; it often results in the creature leaving behind a part of its clasper, which may give rise to a serious sore. Pigs do not appear to be attacked by leeches, but the soft parts of the heads of some of the cassowaries that were shot were found to be covered with them. Cassowaries are few and far between, and there must be millions of leeches that go through life without once tasting blood. Some of the leeches are prettily marked with stripes of yellow and brown, but none that we saw in the jungle were of large size; the longest were perhaps two inches in length.

Besides leeches there was not much to distract or to amuse us in passing through that stage of the march—certainly there were always plenty of the Greater Birds of Paradise to be heard calling, but they were very seldom to be seen—and we were chiefly anxious to struggle to the end of it ourselves and to push the coolies along until we heard the welcome sound of heavy water and light showed through the trees ahead. The Tuaba, at the place where we were accustomed to cross it, is a wide river flowing in about half a dozen channels, which extend over half a mile or more of ground. All of these channels are considerable torrents even in the most favourable conditions and it is by no means easy to cross them, but in the very frequent times of flood they are absolutely impassable. The camping place was made on an island across the first channel, as the river bank proper was covered with very dense jungle, and at low water the island was surrounded by a stretch of dry sand and shingle, which afforded us a pleasant drying ground after struggling through the sweltering jungle.

But it was not always a place of calm; it could be quite a dangerous place, and I had a very unpleasant experience the first time I camped there. I was on my way out to the Wataikwa river with a Gurkha, four coolies and about twenty natives of Parimau laden with tins of rice. The river was comparatively low when we pitched our camp, but it began to rain in the afternoon, and the almost continuous thunder and the black clouds in that direction showed us that it was raining heavily in the mountains. By nightfall the rising flood had completely covered the sandbank in front of the camp, and before midnight the river was flowing right through the camp. The coolies were taking refuge like birds in the trees, and the water had just covered my piece of ground, which was an inch or two higher than any other spot. The Gurkha came and helped me to secure the stores from the water, which was still rising fast. We arranged all the rice tins upright, and on them we placed my bed; on the bed we placed all the other stores and baggage, and finally I took refuge there myself. The water rose above the top of the rice tins and about half way up the framework of my bed and then happily it began to fall rapidly, and in an hour or two the camp was land again. Shoes of mine and odd garments of the coolies were washed away, but we had been in no danger of being swept away, for the current was not rapid enough over the comparatively shallow water of the island; the only risk was from the large logs and trees which came sweeping down on the flood. The Papuans, who were encamped on another island a short distance below ours, had kept up all night a constant and most melancholy wailing, which did not at all add to the humour of the situation.

For three more days we stayed on that sandbank, while the rain poured down and the river swept past us on both sides, unable either to proceed or to retreat. I made two attempts to cross the river, but found it impossible to struggle across the flood. In the meantime the natives, who were well able to swim naked across the first channel, threatened all the time to return to Parimau. A few of them did leave me, but the rest by constant cajoling and by liberal gifts of rice, for which they had acquired a great liking, I persuaded to stay with me until after four days we were able to get away.

From the Tuaba to the Kamura river, a distance of about four miles, a track had been cut by Marshall and the Gurkhas. It was a curious piece of country, almost level and covered with not very dense jungle, but remarkable for the number of streams flowing through it. Between the two rivers we crossed eighteen streams of various sizes; some were rivulets, and others swift and strong so that one was glad of a supporting Papuan on either hand. The Kamura river is of less size than the Tuaba, but it is still a large river and subject to heavy and sudden floods. It flows in a bed of sand and shingle two or three hundred yards from bank to bank, though, except at times of flood, it only occupies a narrow channel. Mostly it runs swiftly over the stones, but here and there are long stretches of still water like the pool of a salmon river; unluckily there are no big fish in it, or New Guinea would be a pleasanter place than it is.

It was an agreeable change to come out on to the bank of the Kamura, for from there we had our first wide view of the mountains that we hoped to reach. The foothills, if mountains eight or nine thousand feet high may be so described, sloped down to within a few miles of us to the North, and behind them and stretching far to East and West rose range beyond range of steep and precipitous ridges, culminating in the snowy top of Mount Carstensz, thirty miles to the North-east. Our route took us for several miles along the course of the Kamura; it was certainly not comfortable walking over the big and often slippery stones and wading waist-deep across the river three or four times to cut off big bends, but it was pleasant indeed to have a wide free space about us after having been for so long hemmed in by trees, and anything was preferable to the mud and leeches of the jungle.

A few miles up the Kamura we left the main river and turned off up the bed of a smaller river, which joins it from the East. This is actually a branch of the Wataikwa connecting the two rivers, and down it comes a great volume of water when the Wataikwa is full, while at other times it becomes almost dry. The rivers of this district of New Guinea are somewhat peculiar in this respect; they are very numerous, and they flow out from the mountains in a North to South direction, with not many miles intervening between one river and the next. As soon as they emerge from the mountains they find themselves on quite low ground and with forty or more miles to run to the sea. There are no outlying hills or depressions to guide them in any particular course, thus it happens that they overflow in convenient directions, and connections are established between one river and another. As well as in the case of the Wataikwa this was observed on the Utakwa river, close to the foot of the mountains, and I believe the same thing happens on the Kapare river. Further on in their courses, when they approach the mangrove swamps near the sea, the rivers again break up into an extraordinary network of branches. Judging from the appearance of the country and from the considerable changes, which we observed in the case of the Wataikwa during a period of only a few months, it is probable that these great rivers change their courses very often.

Whilst parties of coolies, rapidly diminishing in numbers, were occupied at lengthening intervals in transporting stores from Parimau to the camp on the Wataikwa river, Rawling and Marshall had found a way of crossing that river. It is true that there were a great many days when it was quite impossible to cross it, and there was always a certain amount of risk of being swept away, not to mention the discomfort of beginning your day’s work by getting wet up to your chest; but it was absolutely necessary to continue cutting the track, wet or dry. On the other side of the river, they had tried to continue in the North-east direction and had come to broken lumpy ground covered with the densest jungle that we met with in any part of the country. The trees were not so very big, indeed most of them were quite small, but they were of a peculiarly hard wood, which quickly blunted the kukris of the Gurkhas and they grew so close together that it was quite impossible to push your way between them. Eventually a track was cut to the Iwaka River, five miles to the east of the Wataikwa.

Some idea of the difficulty of cutting this track may be learnt, when it is said that Rawling and Marshall with three Gurkhas and five natives were occupied for three weeks in cutting five thousand yards of the way, and the whole distance of five miles was cut in five weeks. Unfortunately it was labour in vain, the path when finished was too difficult for men to traverse with loads. We cut another track, which avoided the hilly ground and brought us to the Iwaka close to the point reached by the first; by the new track, which was cut in a week, we were able to reach the Iwaka in three hours’ walk from the Wataikwa.