56 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



of paddling, and after the first journey it was never 

 repeated. 



On the i8th January, Goodfellow, RawHng, and 

 Shortridge with twenty-four cooHes, six Gurkhas, and 

 a small party of Javanese soldiers in the charge of a 

 Dutch sergeant started up the river. They took with 

 them about a dozen natives, hoping that they would 

 work hard at paddling and would be useful in other 

 wa3^s, but they were a perpetual nuisance calling out 

 for their wives and wanting to stop to eat or sleep ; they 

 finished by stealing one of the canoes and deserting 

 the night before they would have been sent back to 

 their homes. With them went another of our cherished 

 illusions that we should be able to get a great deal of 

 assistance from the natives of the country. The party 

 proceeded up the river at an incredibly slow rate on 

 account of the clumsy rafts, and for four days saw no 

 signs of inhabitants. On the fifth day they found one 

 isolated hut, and two days later after passing a few 

 scattered huts they arrived at the village of Parimau, 

 above which place the river appeared to be hardly 

 navigable. 



The welcome accorded to the party by the natives 

 of Parimau was as enthusiastic as that at Wakatimi 

 described above, the people showing their delight by 

 smearing themselves with mud and shedding copious 

 tears. During the following days, when a camp was 

 being made, hundreds of natives flocked into the place 

 to see the strange white men, who were exhibited to 

 the new-comers with a sort of proprietary air by the 

 natives of Parimau. 



