220 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



threw overboard for them empty tins and bottles, and it 

 was marvellous to see how they raced up to these things, 

 and with a sudden backward stroke of their paddles 

 brought the canoes to a standstill, while they recovered 

 the prize, and then raced on again. 



From the mouth of the Island River, as we went out 

 to sea, we saw through a break in the clouds to the far 

 North the snow on Mount Wilhelmina, which was 

 reached by Mr. H. A. Lorentz in November, 1909. 

 Steaming in a south-easterly direction we kept some 

 way out from the land, which is so low as to be invisible 

 at a distance of a few miles. When we were opposite 

 the Digoel, the greatest (excepting the Fly) of all the 

 South New Guinea rivers, we found the sea strewn with 

 logs and trees, in some places so many together as to 

 form floating islands, on which crowds of gulls and terns 

 were seen to settle at nightfall. 



The tide favouring us, we chose the Marianne Strait 

 between the mainland and Prince Frederick Henry 

 Island. Sometimes, when the south-east monsoon has 

 been blowing regularly for a few days, it is quite im- 

 possible for a ship of only moderate power to steam 

 through it against the current. The Strait is a winding 

 /' channel about ninety miles long and has an average 

 width of about two miles, and it is not surprising that 

 early voyagers, even as late as Kolff, in the Dutch 

 brig-of-war, Dourga, in 1826, mistook it for a river. 

 The banks are low and forest-covered, and we only 

 saw two small clusters of houses. From one of these 

 some men put off in a canoe to intercept us and 

 followed us for some distance, calling " Kaya-Kaya" 



