46 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



was fishing for the sharks with which that shallow 

 sea abounds. They are blunt-nosed animals with large 

 dusky patches on the skin. It is very seldom that you 

 see them at the surface of the water, and they appear 

 to feed always at the bottom. The first that was 

 caught was found to be full of fragments of large crabs. 

 Nobody on board was found willing to eat the flesh, 

 though it is probable that a few months afterwards 

 they would have been less fastidious, so the fish was 

 thrown overboard, and an hour or two later a second 

 shark, a monster about twelve feet long, was hauled 

 on board, and on being opened it was found to be full 

 of large undigested lumps of (presumably) the first. 



On January 8th those of us who had remained on 

 the Nias left the ship and proceeded to Wakatimi, 

 where we found that Lieut. Cramer and his men had 

 already done an immense amount of work in clearing 

 the ground for the camp. It appeared that the place 

 chosen had been cleared of forest at some time, for 

 there were no large trees growing on it, but it was 

 covered with a dense jungle of shrubs and small trees 

 a foot or so in thickness and a tangle of creepers. 

 Already in four days a strip along the river bank about 

 eighty yards long and thirty yards wide had been 

 cleared of bush, and as time went on the clearing was 

 gradually extended until there were twenty acres or 

 more of open ground about the camp. 



During the first two or three days the natives, who 

 had assembled in large numbers at the village of Waka- 

 timi, helped a good deal in clearing the ground and 

 landing the stores. When the steam launch towing 



