190 



make a rope to enable the carriers to stem the current. 

 Angep won through and got the rope, letting it float 

 down to us round the bend. Further up where the 

 Kolebi turned west, we left it, and going still approxi- 

 mately south, we came to the village of Borcai, 1,76 J 

 feet, whence my guide and interpreter Kogi came. 



I have carriers of Bogadijim, Yaura, and Adjau, and 



these go back under police boys Jack and Petme, via 



Ongeruna, and the police boys will return with the gear 



1 left at that village. 



19th March.— Kohu is 700 feet above the sea, and 



the Kamu here cannot be more than 660 feet. 1 

 There we lunched, and pushing on south reached the dispatched carriers, and then tried to buy some native 

 crest of ihe main divide between the sea and Ramu, 

 2,600 feet, and caught a glimpse of the silver ribbons 

 and islands an the distance. Keeping as general 

 southerly dire* lion as the ridge would permit, we 

 dropped down past the liist trickles of water that flow 



into the Solu, and catching a glimpse of the Araucaria and told a 



food. In the end Sarawai brought in seven boys carry- 

 ing taro and bananas, and I purchased these. As I wa 

 doing this sdme boys from across the Ramu, headed by 

 a very old man, Fiele by name, ran into the village 



of Wanese on the way, we reached a river called Kobole, 

 and a little farther were forced to pitch our camp, as a 

 severe thunderstorm, accompanied by a deluge of rain, 

 made further progress impossible. There is no doubt 

 but that the track over the divide is a good one, but 



the Mindjim is the difficulty, and to take this trail in 

 the wet season is madness. There must be some track 



in between the Mindjini and th§ loworo, which is safe 



at all seasons. I stayed behind a few minutes at 

 Boroai to examine the old men as to the story of the 

 fight.'" They knew all about it, and volunteered the 

 information that the Segeli people had the boxes, and 

 were going to keep them ; that they had harried the 

 road, and with the help of the men of Kassowai wen 

 wailing behind their defences to deal with auv intruder 



food and green brandies. Fiele squatted down 



story of how his 



a an owing 



village 



of 



Waimeriba, and the one beyond called Ivcromo, had 

 been raided by a Chinaman with many boys and guns, 

 and all the young men I hey could catch had been carried 

 away, and not one had come back. Kogi, who is in- 

 valuable, as he talks a little Kassowai language, and the 



Kassowai hear Fiele's talk, made out that they were 

 afraid I wanted to buy boys, and he was making it clear 

 that there were none left. I corrected the impression, 

 and explained my purpose in coming here; but I fear 



it was little understood. However, Fiele and his people 



liked the trade goods I gave them. Some old men fr 



Kcaki came in, too, to make my acquaintance. I have 

 seen no young men, and except for two women who 

 went bush when we arrived, there are no females in the 

 village. The hiding of women and boys is always a 



bold enough to dispute their possession of the boxes. I sign of suspicion, and judging by Fiele's talk, I am not 



1 tf* ■ T"!^ • •#» .• -.T 1 «1 ■ 111 I i 1 • A- mm. a m mm, mm -^-v ■» ^-« ^. a -■ r*i 



left Kogi to get more information, with orders to catch 

 us up at dawn. The story would make one pause were 

 it not obviously a pure piece of invention from start to 

 finish. The geology from the river up to the Divide 

 and down to this camp (2,100 feet), differs from the 



Mindjim Valley, which was mostly sedimentary. To- 

 day I have been meeting crystalline rocks and much 



ised 



As I must make my base camp on this side of the 

 river it is essential that friendly relations are estab- 

 lished with the people. 



20th March. — Mosquitoes are a plague here, but not 

 by any means as bad as my swamp camp on the Ramu 

 lower down. Still the boys did not get their full mea- 



volcanic agglomerates. It was the same country as 1 saw gm . e of g] and th ue in consequence, tired this 



between the Ramu and Daguba and Ongoruna. Lime- 

 stone, sandstone, and shales were present, but unlike 

 the Mindjim they were not the predominant rocks. 

 Of forests 1 can say lit lie of interest. Oaks occurred 



en the Divide, hut the timber-yielding Artocarpus and 



the common wild mango were by far the largest species 



seen. A few decent Afzrl ia reminded one of the Ilydro- 

 graphers, but nowhere was there a stand of them. 



All the poor weed trees were well represented, and 



of these the Evodia, with the pink flower, was most 

 conspicuous. A large Semecarpus must not he over- 

 looked, while the loud pink Impaiiens covered dam]) 

 places. I call i his " Bird of Paradise camp. 7 ' There 



morning. Leaving them to put up a sound camp, I lett 

 at 7.30 with the corpora] Sarawai and Kogi for the 

 Ramu. We followed the Kohu River down, wading 

 knee-deep, and then when it turned north-west, we left 



it and went west, crossing another stream also running 



north-west. As was the ease with the Boku, and indeed 



all streams I have met running into the Ramu, these 

 rivers make elbows as they leave the hills, and turn and 

 try to run parallel with the big river. It is just as 

 though some geological change had taken place, and all 

 the land was tilted south-east north-west, so that while 

 the stream and rivers in the deep valleys of the hills 

 held to their courses, they turned with the slope as soon 



is a dance tree over my tent, and after the rain just at ^ they got dearof the las ^ foot Jul 1. 1 ^lojiot advance 



sundown there were six of them playing in it. All the 



pale-yellow plumed type. 



18th March. — Kogi was there before we stalled, and which was very narrow but breast -deep, we gained the 



this as a scientific explanation, but merely to explain 

 the effect it has on my mind. We continued west, and 

 crossing a large flat intersected by only one stream, 



he regarded the story of hostile natives as " all gammon, 

 fashion belong Kanaka." We followed . down several 

 streams to the Teihile, and here a little waterfall occurs, 

 and just beyond on the side of the trail lav my two 

 boxes. Except that the padlocks had been stolen and a 

 hasp broken, and the few books that were inside had 

 been tampered with, they were as the boys had 

 dropped them. The Kanakas of hereabouts were 

 evidently afraid to incriminate 1 themselves by carry- 

 ing off the abandoned boxes to their hamlets. We 

 left the hamlet of Segeli on our left, and came even- 

 tually to the Solu ; we paddled down this in a northerly 

 direction, passing an island 500 yards long, and 

 then followed a convenient south-east tributary, 

 which led up to Wanese and Asias. I found 

 both hamlets deserted, and young grass growing 

 m the thresholds of the huts. We passed our old camp 

 in the grass land, and arrived at Kohu in the afternoon. 

 Found a few people in the village, who took to the 

 bush, but Sarawai later brought them back and sold us 

 a pig for a tomahawk and a red (< lap lap." 





bank of the Ramu proper. The Ramu divides here into 

 numerous arms or channels, will low islands of gravel in 

 between. From shore to shore it is 800 vards across, 

 but of this less than half is water. At first the crossing 

 'of so subdivided a river seemed simple, and the smoke 

 of Waimeriba across the way, and its waving coco-nuts, 

 Were a strong inducement to ford at once. Sarawai and 

 rhe other local boy from Kohu held back, saying th 

 liver was too strong. This seemed queer, as Fiele, who 

 is an old man, crossed yesterday, when, if I am a judge, 

 the river was higher. We started off, leaving the Kohu 

 folk behind, and without difficulty crossed the first 

 two arms; then we faced a deeper, stronger channel, 

 and, try as we would, we could do nothing We might, 

 perhaps, have swam it, but certainly could not take 

 any gear over, and it was a mystery to me how Fiele 

 and his friends got themselves over until the Kohu 

 pecple said there was a crossing lower down. 



Boys on the other bank who had come out from the 

 village in response to Sarawai's yells, were now plainly 

 visible through my glasses, and I noticed that they were 



