OVERFLOWING RIVERS i8i 



bank of the Kamura, for from there we had our first 

 wide view of the mountains that we hoped to reach. 

 The foothills, if mountains eight or nine thousand feet 

 high may be so described, sloped down to within a few 

 miles of us to the North, and behind them and stretching 

 far to East and West rose range beyond range of steep 

 and precipitous ridges, culminating in the snowy top of 

 Mount Carstensz, thirty miles to the North-east. Our 

 route took us for several miles along the course of the 

 Kamura ; it was certainly not comfortable walking over 

 the big and often slippery stones and wading waist-deep 

 across the river three or four times to cut off big bends, 

 but it was pleasant indeed to have a wide free space 

 about us after having been for so long hemmed in by 

 trees, and anything was preferable to the mud and 

 leeches of the jungle. 



A few miles up the Kamura we left the main river 

 and turned off up the bed of a smaller river, which joins 

 it from the East. This is actually a branch of the 

 Wataikwa connecting the two rivers, and down it comes 

 a great volume of water when the Wataikwa is full, 

 while at other times it becomes almost dry. The rivers 

 of this district of New Guinea are somewhat peculiar in 

 this respect ; they are very numerous, and they flow out 

 from the mountains in a North to South direction, with 

 not many miles intervening between one river and the 

 next. As soon as they emerge from the mountains they 

 find themselves on quite low ground and with forty or 

 more miles to run to the sea. There are no outlying 

 hills or depressions to guide them in any particular 

 course, thus it happens that they overflow in convenient 



