MOUTH OF THE MIMIKA 39 



By the time that we eventually anchored off the 

 mouth of the Mimika River it was beginning to grow 

 dark, and Capt. Van Herwerden ordered the natives 

 on board to leave the ship, not having noticed that the 

 canoes had already departed towards the shore. No 

 doubt this was a preconcerted scheme of the natives 

 who wanted to stay on board, but by dint of much 

 shouting two canoes were persuaded to return and take 

 away some of our passengers. It was then quite dark 

 and there was a white mist over the sea, and the spectacle 

 of the procession of black figures passing down the 

 gangway into an apparent abyss, for the canoes were 

 invisible in the gloom, was singularly weird. There 

 was not room for all in the canoes, so about a score of 

 fortunate ones had to stop on board, where they slept 

 in picturesque attitudes about the deck. Five young 

 men chose a place where the iron cover of the steering 

 chain made a pillow a few inches high ; they lay on 

 their sides all facing the same way, their arms folded 

 across their chests and their bent knees fitting into the 

 bend of the knees of the man in front, and so close 

 together that the five of them occupied a space hardly 

 more than five feet square. 



Soon after daylight on the following day the steam 

 launch left the ship with a party to proceed up the 

 Mimika and find a suitable place for a base-camp. The 

 river has a fine wide mouth about a mile across guarded 

 by a sand bar, through which runs a narrow channel 

 navigable at all stages of the tide except during rough 

 weather. For some distance the river is a noble stream 

 two or three hundred yards wide winding in fine sweeps 



