52 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



(page 43) that before we arrived in the country it 

 was expected that we should find rising ground close 

 to the sea, and that in a few days' journey at the most 

 we should reach an altitude of three thousand feet or 

 upwards, but the discovery that there was a tract of 

 level country hardly above sea level extending from 

 the coast to the foot of the mountains thirty miles 

 inland entirely upset our calculations. Had we known 

 this before we should necessarily have brought a launch 

 and boats to tow our stores up the many miles of 

 navigable river, and b}^ so doing we should have saved 

 ourselves many weeks of valuable time and an infinity 

 of labour. It is worth while to record this fact, not 

 for the object of drawing attention to any deficiencies 

 in the organisation of the expedition, but to demonstrate 

 the uselessness of entering an unknown countr\^ without 

 having made a preliminary reconnaissance. 



An urgent message was despatched to the Navy 

 Department in Java begging them to supply us with 

 a steam launch at the earliest opportunity, but com- 

 munications are slow in that part of the world, and it 

 was not until ten weeks afterwards that the launch 

 arrived at the Mimika. Its career was brief and in- 

 glorious. It made two or three journeys at snail's 

 pace up the river before it finally broke down altogether 

 and was sent back to Java. 



In June we purchased from the pearlfishers at Dobo 

 a petrol motor-boat, which made several successful 

 trips up the river towing large quantities of stores, and 

 then it was badly damaged by coming into violent 

 contact with a sunken tree, and it was several months 



