2i6 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



and after we had gone up it a few miles we realised 

 that in the matter of size it is to the Utakwa as that 

 river is to the Mimika. The banks are low and swampy 

 and mostly covered with mangroves for several miles 

 from the coast. Further on the banks are a few feet 

 above the level of high water and we saw many trees 

 that looked like good timber trees and others of con- 

 siderable beauty, notably a wide-spreading acacia-like 

 tree [Alhizia moluccana), and a very graceful palm 

 {Oncosperma filamentosum) like a Betel-nut palm grow- 

 ing in clumps by the waterside. We noticed also a 

 number of Bread-fruit trees {Artocarpus sp.) bigger 

 than any I have seen elsewhere, but none of them 

 appeared to bear fruit. 



We steamed up the river for one hundred and twelve 

 nautical miles to the Swallow, the depot ship and base 

 camp of the Dutch exploring expedition. The river at 

 that point is about three hundred yards wide, but the 

 current is swift and there are many shallow sand banks, 

 which make further navigation impossible for a ship as 

 large as the Valk. 



The Dutch expedition had been established for several 

 months in the country and had made very considerable 

 progress towards the North. From the Swallow they 

 had proceeded up the river two days' journey by steam 

 launch and six days beyond that by canoes as far as the 

 river was navigable, a distance of more than one hundred 

 miles. Thence they had gone North, and in nine marches 

 they had reached a height of ten thousand feet at a point 

 which appeared to be on the watershed of the main 

 mountain range of the island. One of the principal 



