CHAPTER XIV 



The Camp at the Wataikwa River — Malay Coolies — " Amok " — A 

 Double Murder — A View of the Snow Mountains — Felling Trees — 

 Floods — Village washed Away — The Wettest Season — The Effects 

 of Floods — Beri-heri — Arrival of C. Grant — Departure of W. 

 Goodfellow. 



// If I were to write a true and complete account of the 

 expedition, I should fill many pages with repeated stories 

 of rain and floods, sickness among the coolies and our 

 consequent inaction ; but that would be as wearisome 

 to the reader as it was trying to our own patience. 

 During July and a part of August we sent out parties of 

 coolies to the Wataikwa camp, where a considerable 

 depot of food was formed, but about the middle of the 

 latter month the number of our coolies was reduced to 

 twenty, of whom not more than half were capable of any 

 hard work, and it became quite evident that any further 

 progress in the direction of the mountains was out of the 

 question until we should get a fresh supply of men. 



As the number of coolies grew fewer we sent natives 

 with them to carry stores out to the Wataikwa, but the 

 supply of wilhng natives was very uncertain and it 

 became a matter of some difficulty to keep up a regular 

 communication with that camp. Two Gurkhas and two 

 Javanese soldiers remained always at the Wataikwa and 

 one or other of us went out there and stopped to make 

 natural history collections or to superintend the cutting 



