THE MIMIKA RIVER 71 



day's rest at Parimaii, they came down the river in 

 two da^^s and rested for two days at Wakatimi before 

 starting up the river again. One of us accompanied 

 them on nearly every journey with a view to preventing 

 the men from hngering too many days on the voyage 

 and partly as a protection from the natives, who paid 

 great respect to us but were inclined to behave rudely to 

 the coolies, if they were not accompanied by an European. 

 Those days of canoeing up the Mimika River were 

 some of the most monotonous of my life and I shall 

 never forget them. For the first few miles above 

 Wakatimi the river is about as wide as the Thames 

 at Windsor, the banks are covered with smallish trees 

 with here and there clumps of palm trees, from which 

 fresh young coconuts may be gathered. Occasionally 

 the rising tide helps you on your way, and if you are 

 particularly fortunate you may even see at the end 

 of a straight reach of the river a glimpse of the distant 

 mountains. But very soon the river narrows to half 

 its width, the huge trees of the regular New Guinea 

 jungle shut out all except a narrow strip of sky, and 

 the river twists and meanders towards all the points 

 of the compass, until you w^onder whether it will not 

 eventually bring you back to the point whence you 

 started. There was one bend of the river which was 

 particularly remarkable ; it made an almost complete 

 circle of about a mile and a half in circumference, ending 

 at a point exactly forty yards distant from its com- 

 mencement, so that by landing and walking across a 

 narrow neck you could \\ait for more than half an hour 

 for the canoes to overtake you. 



