i64 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



perhaps half a load by carrying axes and knives to be 

 given in payment at the end of the march. So a plan was 

 adopted of giving them at the Wataikwa camp a paper 

 authorising them to demand payment on their return to 

 Parimau, and it was a gratifying tribute to the confidence 

 that they had in us that they readily fell in with the 

 scheme. Before starting they were shewn the knife or 

 axe or whatever it was that they would receive for 

 their labour, and at the end they raced back with their 

 scraps of paper to Parimau, covering in a few hours the 

 distance that had taken them three days on the outward 

 journey. Some of the less energetic people in the village, 

 when they saw that their friends received a knife or an 

 axe by merely presenting a small piece of paper to the 

 man in charge of the camp at Parimau, thought that 

 they might easily earn the same reward, and they were 

 rather astonished to find that the small scraps of paper, 

 which they handed in, produced nothing at all or only a 

 serious physical rebuff. But they were so childlike in 

 their misdemeanours that one could not be seriously 

 angry with them. 



They shewed their confidence in our honesty in an- 

 other very flattering way. During the period of the most 

 frequent floods at Parimau, when they were liable to be 

 washed away at any moment, the people took most of 

 their movable possessions out of their houses and hid 

 them in safe places in the jungle. But many of them 

 merely brought their goods across to our side of the river 

 and deposited them without any attempt at concealment 

 within a few yards of our camp, apparently knowing that 

 there they would be perfectly secure from theft. 



