EXCURSIONS BEYOND MIMIKA 175 



and wc had only to lower our plates into it to clean 

 them. 



On the fourth day the water fell, and the camp was 

 not flooded again for several weeks, but there was left 

 everywhere a thick deposit of mud, which kept the houses 

 sodden for a long time afterwards. In spite of all our 

 precautions, a quantity of stores were irreparably spoilt 

 and, worse still, the flood left behind it an increased 

 amount of sickness, and indeed the wonder was that the 

 prolonged soaking had not ill effects on every one of us. 



At the beginning of July Cramer and I arrived at 

 Parimau, bringing with us the last loads of provisions 

 to complete the store, which w^e had been working hard 

 for three months with our second batch of coolies to 

 accumulate at that place. It was hoped that that store 

 would be sufficient to enable us to use Parimau as a 

 second base camp for making a prolonged expedition 

 into the mountains without wasting any more time on 

 transports up the river ; but in that we had reckoned 

 without the vagaries of the New Guinea climate and the 

 consequent diminution of the effective strength of our 

 coolies, who w^ere already too few for our purpose. 



In the meantime Rawling and Marshall had been 

 making excursions to the North-east of Parimau, in the 

 direction of the high mountains. About five miles from 

 Parimau they had come to the Tuaba River and about 

 the same distance further on they had come to the 

 Kamura River, a few miles above its junction with the 

 Tuaba. Continuing in the same direction they came 

 to another river, bigger than either of the others, the 

 Wataikwa, which was so often impassable that it seemed 



