AT FOOT OF THE SNOW MOUNTAINS 201 



to date. At Samarai I picked up my boat the Sham- 

 rock, and completed the outfitting which I had begun 

 at Sydney. This was to be a very big expedition, and 

 my preparations were on a far larger scale than they 

 ever had been before. At Samarai I was fortunate 

 enough to be able to have transferred to me twelve 

 native boys who had been engaged for work on the 

 goldfields. I had to pay 65 to the recruiting agent 

 for the transfer. 



I left on May 1st for Port Moresby, and after a 

 voyage of four days' length took my clearance out 

 for Dutch New Guinea by way of Thursday Island. 

 The route I took to Thursday Island took us past 

 Yule Island and the famous Bramble Cay sandbank. 

 As we neared Bramble Cay I noticed the sea-birds 

 hovering over it like a cloud, or like the column of 

 smoke that goes up from a bush fire starting on the 

 horizon. Curiosity made me anchor my boat near 

 by so that I might visit the sandbank. 



With a boat's crew of native boys we pulled to 

 Bramble Cay. The noise made by the birds as we 

 disturbed them was shrill and almost deafening. To 

 say that the birds were there in millions, and many 

 millions at that, is not at all an exaggeration. They 

 were mostly terns, black and white, and they had 

 come to the " island " to lay and hatch out their 

 eggs. The " island " is little more than a great 

 sandbank, very low in the water, covered with coarse 

 herbage growing to a height of a few inches. In this 



