187 



the view of the whole valley and the rolling, tumbling, 

 grass-covered hills that lined it. In front lies a clear 

 pad in the grass, and it leads down and up over hill 

 and dale till it vanishes in a little patch of bush near 

 the border of the river lands. These river lands are a 



and always win 



i he mountains/ ' 

 lap." 



the fight. 



" That is why we live on 

 said the old man in his new red " lai 



27th February. — Sent fourteen boys oil" under Police 



and 



curious sight, for they occupy some 4,000 yards of the b°y Moron with two u tucker w boxes and all the 



empty rice swags I could muster. They are to go to 

 Madang and bring fresh supplies both for the boys and 

 for me 



valley, and look as though the river from time to time 

 had altered its course backwards and forwards across 



this width. There are confluents and swamps shining 

 white in this area, while in the middle is the river 



s 



I have now six boys and three police boy 

 and the Tultul of Bili-Bili, who seems a stout fellow 



the boys in camp and taking 



Leaving; 



proper, which is a network of waterways and islands. an d P uts confidence into the six boys who came from 

 The islands are very green, and the river, though it his village; also Peter the herbarium boy. 

 must be a yellow flood, shines very bright in the sun- 

 light that is now falling on it. Fields under cultiva- 

 tion can be seen through the glasses on the flat land 



two police boys and an 

 old man as interpreter and a Wanese boy, we followed 

 the track down to the Kasowai village, which I had 



bordering the river area, and also on the high range caught sight of yesterday when returning from Hanep. 



we have just come down; and down the Giagolo, also, 1 found a little collection of houses all freshly deserted. 



the dark-green of a wild potato crop shows up very The village which appears to be called after the Kohu 



o 



f 



stream that bubbles down between the hills here con- 

 sists really of three hamlets well hidden in a dump 

 bush. There was no sign of a large population, and 

 I concluded that the stories I had been told were all 

 the usual native moonshine. 



After much shouting a 



clearly. Across the river, too, which is 3 miles away, 

 one can see the smoke of a village, and an old chap 

 we found taking water at the creek tells us that there 

 are many people there, and every year they come across 



to hunt pig, burn the grass, and fight the inhabitants. 



T asked him about some coco-nuts I had seen on the 



way down, and from which I had got a green nut for 



bread making, and he said his father planted them from 



seed got from the trees that grew along the Eamu. 



One wonders how the coco-nut originally got as far 



inland as this. The old man also said that in time gone 



by there had been many people hereabouts, but they 



had died out, except a very few. Passed some good 



oak and some Araucaria, and a large tree like a Calo- hamlet called Koaki, seven houses in nil, quite de- 



phvllum was very plentiful. Sago, too, was common, serted. Sarawai shouted himself hoarse, but none of 



the inhabitants appeared, so we lefi some tobacco and 



native named Sarawai and another came in and ex- 

 plained that every one had run away very frightened. 



We pushed on up the valley along a well-beaten path 

 through the grass, and in an hour came to 



a river 



called Efabia, a ,300 yarda wide bed of stones with a 

 30-yard wide river running in the middle. An excel- 



lent example of torrential conditions following forest 



denudation. On the other side we found a little 



red 



. V 



lap lap" at the closed door of t] 



M 



bluest 



hut, and returned to camp leaving Sarawai at Kdni, 

 telling him to bring his people up to see me lo-monow. 



Sarawai confirmed the Slorv thai bov crossed the 



Raniu here — the river 



from Kohu 



story 

 ( annot 



be 



more 

 but said (hat 



t han 



a mile 



M was 



only 



away ironi i\onu village 



when making raids that the villagers of Waimeriba on 

 the opposite bank were at war with the Kasowai 



On returning to camp I was surprised to find 

 Police Hoy Moron, whom I had sent to Madang this 



lit told a horrible 



waiting at the salute. 



It 



and the making of the food was known to the natives. 

 It would take a fairly large population to convert as 

 big an area as this into grass land. 



The top of the divide is 2,200 feet, and I estimate 

 the distance from last night's camp to here is 7 miles. 



26th February. — Leaving boys to fix up camp, I went 

 off to investigate the count ly along the range to the 



south-west. I had no interpreter for the lower land, 



and if, as the Wanese boys state, the population is large people. 



and warlike, it is as well to reconnoitre. The country 



from here on up the Eamu appears to be Savannah 



with clumps of bush in gullies and around villages. 



These grass lands are the result of clearing, and they 



reach up to 1,500 and 2,000 feet on the mountain side. 



The valley is no longer a vast swamp, but the grassed 



foothills come down to within a mile and a half of the 



present watercourse. We found Araucaria, both Hoop 



and A. Klinkii that is like Bunya. I also collected some 



herbs and grasses for identification, and added three 

 new tree species to my collection. "We found little 

 patches of cultivation, and a village called Hanep 

 perched on the end of a razor-backed ridge overlook- 

 ing all the lower land. The people were timid and 

 retired into the grass land and approached with spears, 

 bows, and arrows. When the Wanese boys called to 

 them that there was no danger ihey laid down their dent, and while I don'i 'believe that anything worse than 



morning, 



story of a fight in the mountains beyond Wanese. 

 appears that after passing Wanese and dropping to t he 

 Solu and then taking the new trail pointed out by a 

 Wanese guide I had chosen last night, which led up 

 the river, thev heard Kanakas in the bush. The 



e y 



carriers became frightened at the blood -curdling yells 

 of the natives, and the police boy was unable to hold 

 them, though he bunched them together and presented 



hi 



rifle at the enemy. 



The carriers dropped the 



boxes and ran, reaching camp by a circuitous route and 

 short, one boy called Waitini, who thev averred 

 was cut off and killed. They were all positive they heard 

 him scream, and then followed the howls of the Kana- 

 kas as they despatched him. This is a perplexing inei- 



the end 



made friends, bringing me 



arrows in rne en a and 

 food in the shape of bananas and sweet potatoes. They 

 seemed glad to get tobacco in payment, and an old 

 man who had had elephantiasis seemed delighted with 



A number of natives came to see me 



a " lap lap/' 



in the afternoon and seemed friendly. 



All who were 



questioned warned me against proceeding to the Ramu ; 

 the Kasowai people who occupied the country were 

 hostile to strangers, and that I must bring many guns 

 if I am to enter their villages. What interested me 



as that these Kasowai people speak the same " talk " ae 

 Lose on the other side of the river, and there certainly 



is communication across the water which is all split up 



th 



with islands. Asked how they crossed, the boys said 

 walk and swim, using a log to help them. Thai every 

 time the hill people attacked the Kasowai. these 

 rothersiders would send reinforcements over the river tale of the fiidit. as the flight is called, had now deve- 



F.12389.— 13 



cockatoos were heard, the loss of a bov in the bush and 

 the panicking of the carriers is serious. The bov will 



get through Jill right, hut the earners 7 frigid is very 

 difficult to calm. They came in a body to me after 

 dark and said that they could not stay; thai there wa 

 a bottom road to Ongortina, and ihey would go back 

 that wav : that a "Wanese boy would show them. T 

 pointed out that none of the thirteen boys had a 

 scratch; that the police boy had not fired his gun . that 

 only three of the boys had seen the native-, and they 

 all disagreed as to the number: that tie v w« re a pack 

 of cowards to have their mate to be scuppeied; and, 

 generally speaking, I told them off. I at<T the four 

 police boys came to me, and it seems that Moron, who 

 is evidently an old woman, has affected two of the 

 others, leaving An gap as my only staunch boy. Tie- 



