The day after I had settled the business with Kafulu, I sent Sam on to the Kebea to collect Lepidoptera, so that we might be working two different localities and elevations at the same time. On April 26 Harry left Ekeikei to fetch Sam back with the collections he had made, for we had decided to go back to Hall Sound and send home our specimens, which the humid atmosphere was threatening to spoil. In due time they returned, and after I had examined the results of Sam’s labours, I arranged with him to return to Foula, where he had been collecting, while my son and myself went down to the coast.

The journey down was not very eventful, but one night we spent at Bioto Creek will always remain memorable to us. At Bioto we put all our cases on board a canoe, and set out with two natives to navigate the overladen craft to Pokama. As we did not leave until late we were forced to spend the whole night in the creek. In our crazy vessel, weighed down almost to the water’s edge, for she had only three inches of free board, we lay close inshore, under dense mangrove trees. Sleep was impossible, for we were assailed by mosquitoes and other discomforts; added to this we had to endure the stench of mud, the hoarse cry of the mound-builder, the clacking of myriads of bivalves as the tide receded, the incessant rain, the inky blackness of the night, and the unmistakable presence of innumerable crocodiles. Fortunately we did not know then that only a short time before, near this place, two natives had had a desperate fight with a crocodile, which lifted one of them right out of their canoe; the other fought the crocodile gallantly, and managed to get his companion back into the boat, when the saurian, nothing daunted, returned to the attack, and seized the poor fellow again, dismembering him.

Although we had not the knowledge of this accident to add to our troubles, that night in Bioto Creek, which we spent cramped up in the most uncomfortable position, was probably the most unenviable I have ever passed. Darkness fell at 6.30; at 3.30 A.M. we were very glad to welcome the moonrise, and saw the light gradually silhouette the dense matted branches of the mangrove. About 4 A.M. we left our anchorage, and the dawn saw us well on our voyage to Pokama. It was wonderful on our arrival there how soon, under the influence of a good bath, clean clothes, a white table-cloth, and a decent meal, we forgot the horrors of the night that had just passed.

From Pokama we went on to Hall Sound, where we were fortunate enough to find the ketch St. Andrew about to sail, and on board that boat we secured a passage. Setting out on the 4th May, we were often badly becalmed, and on the third day we lay ten miles off the coast for the whole twenty-four hours. On the 9th we sighted an islet thirty miles from Thursday Island. This we passed safely, but at 1.30 a strong tide from the leeward set us to windward of the next island, where there is a bad reef, and at 4 P.M., when we were running before the wind at the rate of six knots an hour, we ran right on to it. As morning broke we found we were on a shelving reef, and in a very undesirable predicament indeed. We threw out stone ballast, and after bumping about for four hours, and making many unsuccessful attempts to get the boat off, losing an anchor and chain in the process, we managed to get clear with the flood tide. Next night we got into Thursday Island, and, on examining the ship, we found that some sheets of copper had been torn off her.

At Thursday Island we were both prostrated by a sharp attack of fever. This was the first time it had seized me since I came to New Guinea, and it is not unusual when a man has been living in the wilds for some time, and has escaped malaria, that he falls a victim to it almost as soon as he returns to comparative civilisation and better food. In spite of this drawback, we were successful in getting our collections despatched, and at 8 P.M., on the 23rd of May, on a dark, dirty, and very gusty night, with a nasty sea running, we left Thursday Island, and steered our course for Hall Sound. In the vicinity of Bramble Cay—a dangerous sandbank, about 160 miles from Yule Island—we had our sails blown away, and were left in an almost helpless condition, only two small sails remaining. For the three following days we beat about in a heavy sea, not knowing exactly where we were, for we had not been able to take an observation since we left.

On the evening of Friday the 29th May we managed to get under the shelter of Yule Island, inside the reef, and into smoother water. This was fortunate, for that night it blew a hurricane, and there was a heavy sea, even where we were lying. When daylight broke we went on, and anchored off the mission station at Yule Island, whence we sent word to Port Moresby by whaleboat that, owing to our disabled condition, it would be impossible for us to go there to clear, for the Customs regulations are that all vessels crossing to New Guinea must clear at Port Moresby, Samurai, or Daru. Of course, we could not beat up to Port Moresby against the S.E. monsoon without sails, so we lay there five days, until the whaleboat returned with our clearance. Our stay was anything but pleasant, for we had to remain on board the small ketch under a blazing sun, as we were unable to land until we got our clearance from the Customs.

There was, however, one remarkable diversion during this weary time of waiting; for on our arrival we found, to our surprise, a large iron sailing-ship at anchor in the sound—certainly the largest vessel that ever entered it. She proved to be the W. C. Watjen, a German barque that had gone through a terrible experience in the very centre of the typhoon, the tail of which had given us so much trouble. I made friends with the captain—a hero in his way—who, without being aware of what an extraordinary feat of seamanship he had performed, told me in the quietest possible manner one of the most wonderful tales of the sea it has ever been my lot to hear. It was indeed, in many particulars, almost an exact parallel to Mr. Conrad’s remarkable story, “Typhoon.”

The vessel was bound from New York for Yokohama with kerosene. She had been out from New York for 196 days without sighting a single ship, and when off the coast of New Caledonia she encountered the typhoon. The captain’s first warning that a tempest was brewing was, of course, a sudden and unaccountable fall of the glass. Suspecting what was in store for him, he went on deck and gave orders to prepare for a typhoon. In fifteen minutes he returned to his cabin, and found that in that short space of time the mercury had actually fallen seven-sixteenths more, and he knew from that indication that he would shortly have to face a storm, which he may well have doubted the powers of his vessel to weather.

Before very long the tempest struck her in all its fury. For five days she encountered the direst perils. Her cargo had originally consisted of 80,000 cases of kerosene, and during the worst of the tempest 20,000 had been thrown overboard. On the very first day the rudder was carried away, but by extraordinary efforts the crew contrived to rig a staging at the stern for steering, and they managed to fit up a primitive rudder. The captain was injured when the rudder was carried away, for the long tiller (the W. C. Watjen was so old-fashioned that they did not use a wheel) swept round and hit the master heavily on the groin. A huge hole, six feet in diameter, had been knocked in the stern when the rudder was carried away, and this flooded the cabin and the middle part of the ship. They managed to stop the hole and bale out the cabin, but the tremendous seas denied the crew all access to the forward part of the vessel, where the store of fresh water was kept, and for five days they had nothing to drink but the dish-water which had been left in the cook’s galley. Strangely enough, there was only one very serious casualty, the second mate being disabled by an accident to his knee. The captain told me that during the worst of the storm they were continually under water; the seas seemed to strike them simultaneously at bow, stern, port, and starboard, and at times seemed to descend even from the heavens. How terrible the force of the tempest must have been was proved by the fact that the great steel masts of the vessel, six feet in circumference, had all gone over the side.

Although thus disabled herself, however, the W. C. Watjen was enabled to play good Samaritan to a smaller German vessel in a like plight, and took up her crew and brought them safely to Hall Sound. All the bulwarks were carried away, iron plates one-eighth of an inch thick were peeled from the sides of the ship, and crumpled up like paper by the force of the wind and sea. After the fifth day the captain was able to take an observation, and, by the help of an old chart, he concluded that New Guinea must be his nearest land. Crippled as he was, he endeavoured to make for Yule Island, where his chart, which was incomplete, told him there was a mission station, and, curiously enough, he was quite close to his desired haven when he was discovered and towed in by the Moresby after seventy-six days’ stress. Had the vessel drifted farther west, she must have gone on the reefs, and the crew would certainly have fallen victims to the cannibal natives. It is really extraordinary how she managed to escape all the dangers of the coral islands that dot the seas for at least 200 miles west of Hall Sound.

The same typhoon wrecked Townsville, unroofed an hotel, reduced brick buildings to débris and killed seven men; at the same time the sea receded and left the shipping dry.

When we had been lying in Hall Sound some three or four days, the Merrie England came up with the Administrator, Mr. Ruthven Le Hunte, who asked us to breakfast, and told us that for some days he had been very anxious about the St. Andrew and had been keeping a sharp look-out for us on his passage from the west.

When we had finally got our clearance we set about going to camp again at Ekeikei, but it took us until the 17th June to get together our carriers. The old difficulties in regard to them again beset us, but after great trouble and much searching and persuasion we obtained a somewhat inadequate force with which we pushed on and got back to Ekeikei on the 20th June. There five of our boys deserted.

No sooner were we back in camp than a new trouble assailed us in the shape of an attack of sickness among our natives. We had hardly been a week at Ekeikei and were just settling down to our work, when one or two boys turned ill and complained of headache and were very feverish, and very soon the tell-tale rash proclaimed they had German measles. They were very miserable, poor fellows, and lay, some under the house, and some in the sun, all showing signs of considerable distress. Nursing, according to our ideas, was of course impossible, for you cannot induce a savage to keep himself covered up. A curious symptom in one case was that the boy’s speech was affected. We did our best for them and gave them cooling medicine, and fortunately they all recovered. As soon as they were convalescent they wanted to go back to their villages, and it was very difficult to dissuade them. That would of course have been a very disastrous proceeding, as they would certainly have returned only to spread the infection, which is most easily communicated during convalescence.

Knowing that they had caught the disease on the coast, they were, naturally, very reluctant ever to undertake any other journeys for me to the sea again, and the situation was altogether very trying, for they said that the white man brought the sickness. While it lasted it was a very hard matter to hold the camp together. Finally, however, when they saw that the white man was doing everything in his power to help them, they were reassured. On their own account they tried to treat themselves, by the peculiar native method of bleeding, which will be found more particularly described in the chapter dealing specially with Papuan manners and customs.

On June 22 we lost Sam for awhile, for we had to let him go down to Port Moresby to be treated for some trouble in his leg, but he promised to return in six weeks.

At the beginning of July Harry set out on a rather adventurous journey, for I consented to allow him to go alone to the Kebea. It is scarcely likely that in the history of British New Guinea an English boy of sixteen has ever been alone with cannibals. His difficulties were not long in beginning, and I quote the following extracts from his diary:—

“Left Ekeikei 5.30 A.M. After half-an-hour one man played out, so I had to take about 12 lbs. out of his bag and carry it myself; two hours from Madui he played right out; a woman carried his load. We travelled very slowly and stopped often. Did not get to Madui until 4 P.M.; found the little bottle of brandy father gave me in case of need, broken and contents gone.

“July 2nd, ’03.—After changing carriers went on to Dinawa, and after resting a little, on to the Kebea, where we arrived at 5 P.M.

“July 7th.—I left for Yo-ya-ka, on the other side of the Kebea, as I wanted to get carriers to go to Ekeikei to bring up father and Sam. They were very frightened when I went into the village and would not come near me. The road was very steep and I got back very tired. It was a long walk. Could not get any carriers.

“July 8th.—There is a feast at Yo-ya-ka and I shall be very glad when it is over, as then I hope to get carriers. There is not much food here, only sweet potatoes. A difficult country to shoot or collect in.

“July 9th.—Hardly any food left. The natives of the village of Inomaka object to my collector shooting there, and refuse to permit him to collect butterflies, so the boy returned empty-handed. I am sending a few carriers to father, only three. I have been busy enclosing the end of the hut that Sam had previously hastily built up, as it was left open. One of my boys, Matu, left me yesterday and has not returned.

“July 13th.—Shall be glad of the shooters’ return, for I have had no meat for nine days, only sweet potatoes. Last night I tried the lamp for moths and did not do badly.

“July 14th.—Shooters return with nothing. Ow-bow arrived in the afternoon, but no carriers. Got 190 moths to-night and busy pinning them to-day.

“July 15th.—Father arrived at 4.30 P.M.”

Amplified Note on the Journey to Yo-ya-ka

For my journey to Yo-ya-ka I started from a point opposite the Kebea and went down past one of the Yuni-Yuni villages, situated on a spur of the mountains. We then made a long ascent of some 2000 feet leading up to the same ridge as Mount Kebea where the village of Yo-ya-ka is situated. It was a most remarkable place, and it is difficult to convey exactly to those who have never seen it, the idea of what these Papuan ridges with their strangely perched villages are. They come up almost to a razor edge, relatively speaking, and certainly the free footway on that Yo-ya-ka ridge was no wider than fifteen inches. This narrow strip of foothold followed the main street of the village, and on each side of it the houses were on supporting poles. The extreme sharpness of the declivity on each side, of course, made the houses much higher on the side farthest from the road than on that facing it. As structures they were not much to boast of; there were about twenty of them and all were tumble-down. The Yo-ya-ka people were preparing for a feast, and when I arrived the men were strutting about in their feathers and paint. Various tribesmen from a distance had assembled; three were from Yuni-Yuni and some from Baw-boi. Among the visitors we noticed some familiar faces. A native helper named Gavashana recognised me at once. He asked me to come in, so I sat down and gave him some tobacco. The Baw-boi people, however, were greatly alarmed at my appearance. They began to cry and retreated, saying it was “Fi-fi,” that is, magic. Their acquaintances, however, reassured them and made them come up to me and shake hands. I then tried to induce a few men to enter our service as carriers, but failed, so I determined to return and started at once. When I had gone a little way up the ridge, Ow-bow, for some reason best known to himself, persuaded me to let off my gun, whereat the whole of the merry-makers turned out and began to jabber at the rate of nineteen to the dozen.

I returned to the camp at Mount Kebea, and for the next week or so experienced rainy weather and great discomfort. All my provisions were gone, and I had to live on sweet potatoes and a few birds we could shoot. I tried eating the Drepanornis Albertisii, but it was the most shocking flesh I have ever eaten. We roasted the bird on a split stick and found it as bitter as gall; as was to be expected, I did not go further than the first mouthful, although I was very hungry.