178 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



the creature leaving behind a part of its clasper, which 

 may give rise to a serious sore. Pigs do not appear to 

 be attacked by leeches, but the soft parts of the heads of 

 some of the cassowaries that were shot were found to be 

 covered with them. Cassowaries are few and far between, 

 and there must be millions of leeches that go through 

 life without once tasting blood. Some of the leeches are 

 prettily marked with stripes of yellow and brown, but 

 none that we saw in the jungle were of large size ; the 

 longest were perhaps two inches in length. 



Besides leeches there was not much to distract or to 

 amuse us in passing through that stage of the march — 

 certainly there were always plenty of the Greater Birds 

 of Paradise to be heard calling, but they were very 

 seldom to be seen — and we were chiefly anxious to 

 struggle to the end of it ourselves and to push the coolies 

 along until we heard the welcome sound of heavy water 

 and Hght showed through the trees ahead. The Tuaba, 

 at the place where we were accustomed to cross it, is a 

 wide river flowing in about half a dozen channels, which 

 extend over half a mile or more of ground. All of these 

 channels are considerable torrents even in the most 

 favourable conditions and it is by no means easy to cross 

 them, but in the very frequent times of flood they are 

 absolutely impassable. The camping place was made on 

 an island across the first channel, as the river bank proper 

 was covered with very dense jungle, and at low water 

 the island was surrounded by a stretch of dry sand and 

 shingle, which afforded us a pleasant drying ground after 

 struggling through the sweltering jungle. 



But it was not always a place of calm ; it could be 



