198 



losr irreplaceable material, notes and photos. 



the downpour of rain and the closely enveloping mist, thing not utterly necessary in my ascent of Mt. Otto 



These weather conditions made any surveying observa- behind me at the camp, and* if the story is true I Iiav 



tions impossible, and so for the last lap I left the utterly 



done carriers with the theodolite and went up with 



Angep, who observed: "On top belong mountain he 



no stop," which T was beginning to think was true. 



but at last we reached the top rocks. The little 



triangulation of the country must therefore be taken as 



only approximate, for the apex of my first major 



triangle was calculated and nor observed. We got back 



to camp in three and a half hours, and I went down 



with fever at 6 p.m. 



10th April.— Jack and his mate got back late and 

 eonfirmed the news that my camp had been gutted. 

 Also, they heard a rifle shot. We got off at 6.30, and 

 crossed the Ramu, which was not quite so difficult this 

 time as it was down a foot; and moving as silently as 

 possible we entered Kohu village at 5 a.m., and found 

 things as had been described, only worse. Everything 

 had been gone through, and what the natives did not 

 want they smashed. I kept my people off the centre of 



All in camp was right, and the only complaint was the village and spent an hour going over the scraps of 



that a boy had taken my mosquito- boots, and footing 

 them had shown off before his friends for some time 



paper that literally strewed the ground. I recovered 

 some of the Ogeraninagn Joangey notes and a few 



before Jack, by tact and a gift of salt, recovered them. astronomical observations, but, alas, my diary had gon 



« V 



Salt is much in demand, and the boys brought me then- 

 own substitute — a potash obtained by burning the 

 stem and twigs of a young tree. Unfortunately, it was 

 too late and 1 was too tired to inspect the growing tree 

 and collect material. This method of obtaining saline 

 for food has been recorded in Papua, I think. 



with all other papers and books, and my negatives and 

 prints I found stamped into the mud of the place, 

 ruined beyond hope. Coming to the boxes, they bad 

 smashed the lids and taken what they wanted and 

 thrown the rest away. Thev put an axe through my 

 wireless set and disembowelled my spare watch. They 



emptied the medicine chest- — I only hope (hey ate all 

 9th April.— Thirty grams of quinine killed the fever, t iie mercury perchlor. Ten flies and 12-bore atamuni- 



and rising at dawn we struck camp in a heavy Scotcli 

 mist and set out for warmer levels 'below. As soon a> 

 our intentions were clear, the men of the villages turned 

 cut to see us off. There was no spirited demonstration 

 of regret, but they lined the path and the approaches 

 of the- bridge and silently watched us go, and only the 

 gnome, who still chewed betel nut, laughed as he hugged 

 a very large roasted taro to his bosom. There were 51 

 at the bridge, and they must have feared an assault 

 on their village, for they all had their arrows loose and 

 (heir bows strung. I decided that it would be discreet 

 net to cross the bridge, but to go down the river on 

 (he tide we were on, and the general unbending of the 

 inhabitants who followed our movements in this direc- 

 tion showed that they were all much relieved. By 

 11 a.m. we had reached the camping-place of the 

 night of the 7th, and while till now there had been 

 quits a tail of Sahi boys, these had all vanished and 

 Koromo people came up the river to meet us. So down 

 we went, and we did not even call at Koromo but 

 pass d on to the Marea. The last sight I had of Koromo 



tion they ignored, contenting themselves with throwing 



the cartridges out into the wet. I found the back ol 

 my camera and later recovered the lens and shutter, 

 which was lucky; they must have opened it with an 

 axe and fern the front frein the back. My aerial wire 



did not appeal to them, for they left it coiled in its 

 reel, but the 5-chain tape had disappeared. I thought 

 the botanical material would be safe, as it was so un- 

 interesting to natives, but I had forgotten (he news- 

 papers which enveloped the specimens, so when L 

 opened the iron drying box, which was in no way 

 damaged, I found it empty, except, for a few broken 

 twigs and leaves. The herbarium had been taken out, 

 and later we found pieces of the newspapers in every 

 hiding place. I had left three 40-lb. bags of rice be- 

 hind, just enough to see me and a large gang of porters 

 to the sea. The Kohu people do net eat rice, but they 

 scattered the food about the village square, and all over 

 the desolation of my looted camp hangs the heavy 

 stench of rotting grain. The loss of herbarium speci- 

 mens and of the wood specimens too — for these had dis- 



people was the gnome sitting on a rock which was quite appeared — and of my notes, negatives and diary, were 

 red, for he was still chewing betel nut. The villagers 

 never wished us good-bye or good luck, and the last 



sou id I heard was the gnome's laugh. 



I 



pect he is 



the most serious 



A thorough search was made in the bush around the 

 village, and soon a number of objects were found of 



still telling the tale of his journey among the man- wh ich the most important was the spare .303 ammuni- 

 eaters of Sahi, end is spitting betel juice and chuckling tion whldl when counted was onl three ghort There 



A Hfi» -. .i-l»i, x . . - - « I * . ^ . -. , --» -v -« --. C --» I . i 4- I ~ -^ i .. * . . mm. mam .-. 1 U « 1. — — .-»_-. _ •/ 



away while, with a gem of a little stone axe that even 

 a twopenny mirror would not buy, he whittles away 

 at a well-cooked taro. 



Arrived at Waimeriba at 5 p.m., and was astonished pieces. 



remains the police-boy's pouch which should be on his 

 belt. That rifle shot last night is disquieting. The 

 other finds were bits of wireless gear and a slide rule in 



at the reception we got. Faile affected great joy at our 

 return, stroked us all over and bought us a pig. I 

 decided to camp there, and sent Jack and one boy over 

 to tell Peter and police boy Marunga that we were 

 arriving. In the morning the two were to go on to 

 Ongoruna, and bring back carriers to take all our gear 

 and collections back to Madang. Faile detailed two 



strong men to guide the two boys over the Ramu. 

 The reason for Faile's extraordinary behaviour became 



clear when the interpreter Kogi, after much talk, dis- 

 entangled a fairly continuous story, which was: — My 

 base camp at Kohu had been attacked while I was away 

 and completely looted. 0,i cross-examining several 

 bovs, I gathered that Peter, Marunga, and the other 

 boy had got away to Ongoruna in time; that the raiders 

 came from Kaiserup, on this side of the Ramu, and 

 that they had the police boy's rifle and ammuni- 

 tion. Thai they came from this side .is absurd, and 

 merely a blind. The possession of the rifle is not very 

 serious, ai they cannot know how to use it, though thev 

 may kill each other. I unfortunately had left every- 



Jack has developed ulcers and so he can't move fast; 

 I left him to guard the carriers and my gear, and with 

 the other police-boys I set out to hunt up the inhabi- 

 tants, and search the hidden huts of the rogues for 

 loot. We have seen no women of the Kohu people, 

 except by accident, when they have always run away, 



aijd T judged that the loot would be hidden wherever 

 the women were. 



We were not long finding tracks which led up to huts 

 where we found an old woman from whom Kogi could 

 gel no information. The huts yielded bundles of news- 

 papers — my drying paper; the bottom part of my 

 aneroid ; some wire, and odds and ends. Using the old 

 woman as a guide we found more hidden huts, 

 recovered nothing of any value. There was evidence 

 everywhere that everything of value to me had been 

 smashed. While in a European house in civilization 

 it would be hard to find hidden loot, in a native hut 

 of the stone-age period every little scrap of civilized 

 gear shines out and is recognized at once. Having 

 finished our search, we went back over the trail and 



but 



