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174 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



fell a little and we spent laborious hours in piling up our 

 stores and movable gear on to the top of empty boxes, 

 and when, those were all used on posts driven into the 

 ground. All through the afternoon the water rose, the 

 coohes' and soldiers' houses were quickly flooded, and 

 our own house, which was on the highest part of the 

 camp, was nearly a foot under water. On the two 

 succeeding days the conditions were much more serious, 

 and we had two feet of water in our house. The river 

 took a short cut over the neck of land formed by a wide 

 bend of the river on which the camp was placed and 

 flowed straight through the camp. Our beds were raised 

 up on empty kerosene-tin boxes, and when these were 

 submerged there was a mild excitement in guessing how 

 far up the frame-work of the bed the water would rise. 

 Fires were put out and cooking was impossible, so the 

 coolies and soldiers, who depended on their boiled rice, 

 had rather a hungry time. Our own food consisted of 

 biscuits and cold tinned stuff, which is not very exhilara- 

 ting when you have been in water all day long. An 

 unprejudiced observer looking in upon us from the outside 

 in the evening might well have wondered what kind of , 

 lunatics we were to come to New Guinea. Goodfellow 

 was lying in bed very sick with fever, while Rawling and 

 I, up to our knees in water, were making a poor pretence 

 at having dinner. The only humour that we managed: 

 to extract from the situation was in the novel experience 

 of being able, without moving from our seats, to wash! 

 our plates between the first course of biscuits andj 

 sardines and the second course of biscuits and marma-j 

 lade ; the Mimika river was flowing under our chairs] 



