^ 



240 PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



could trace down to its lagoon-like estuary, and beyond 

 it was the Aiika, and a very distant river, possibly the 

 Newerip. 



Nobody who has not spent a year and more in a 

 dreary jungle countr}^ where you are seldom more 

 than a 3'ard or two from the nearest tree, and where the 

 limit of your view is the opposite bank of a stagnant 

 river, can realise the rest, to the mind and to the eye 

 alike, that a wide horizon gives. Although there were 

 points of interest to be seen by the cartographical eye, 

 there was nothing, excepting the outlines of some of 

 the nearer mountains, of beauty in that view ; there 

 were no striking features of the land and no gorgeous 

 effects of colour, but one will always treasure a recol- 

 lection of the physical delight of seeing far and wide 

 to the horizon, and of the feeling of satisfaction in looking 

 down godlike on the w^orld that we had so painfully 

 traversed. 



But views, like all other good things, have their 

 ends, and ours was all too soon interrupted by the daily 

 thick blanket of white cloud, which rolled up and en- 

 veloped us until nightfall. We groped our way back 

 to the camp where we found our coolies very miserable 

 and shivering with cold — poor wretches, they had 

 never before endured, nor even imagined, a temperature 

 so low as 50° F. To us the coolness was very pleasant, 

 and it provoked a hunger to which we had long been 

 strangers ; very small quantities of boiled rice, and 

 chupatties made by the Gurkhas of mildewed and 

 weevilly flour, only served to stimulate our appetites 

 for more. 



