CONVICT LUNATIC 215 



his knife another man and then jumping hastily into 

 the sea. The sudden plunge cooled his fever and the 

 appearance of a sea-snake swimn^ing not far from him 

 made him as anxious to return to the ship as he had 

 been to leave it. 



During the voyage down the coast we saw a number ^ 

 of sea-snakes, sometimes as far as thirty or forty 

 miles from land, but there was no opportunity of 

 catching one ; they appeared to be yellowish with dark 

 markings and were about three or four feet in length. 

 I was told that they sometimes travel in large numbers 

 together and will climb up the sides of ships at anchor, 

 but I cannot vouch for the correctness of this statement. 



Another episode, which enlivened the vo3''age down 

 to Merauke, was caused by the strange behaviour of 

 one of the convicts, who was being taken away from the 

 Mimika. This man had suffered from the common 

 form of delusion that everybody was against him, and 

 after he had run away from the camp at Wakatimi 

 and had spent thirty-six hours in the jungle without 

 food I certified that he was of unsound mind and 

 recommended that he should be sent back to Java. 

 He was found prowling about the ship with an exceed- 

 ingly sharp knife, with which (so he said) he intended 

 to murder me, so he was promptly secured in chains. 

 We made friends in a day or two and he was set at 

 liberty again before we reached Merauke, but I confess 

 I was not sorry when we were no longer together in the 

 same ship. 



On the second day after leaving the Utakwa we 

 entered the Island River by one of its many mouths, 



