26o PYGMIES AND PAPUANS 



the rare and valuable faculty of being able to eat out of 

 a basket tied round their necks as they walk along. 

 The country, what little we saw of it, looks extremely 

 prosperous, and the beauty of the cultivated lands, 

 interrupted here and there by groves of trees and 

 backed by mountains, is beyond dispute. 



From Bali to Java is only a few hours' steaming, 

 and from Batavia another ship brought us to Singapore, 

 where we arrived on May 2nd. A month later we 

 landed in England and the English Expedition to 

 Dutch New Guinea, 1910-11, was a thing of the past. 



It is not easy to put down in words what were our 

 thoughts on our homeward journey from the Mimika 

 River to Plymouth Sound. Naturally enough there 

 were feelings of pleasant anticipation in returning to 

 the comforts of civilised life, and there were feelings 

 of profound thankfulness that we had left behind us 

 neither our bones nor our health, as too many others 

 less fortunate had done. There was also a sense of 

 (I think pardonable) satisfaction at having accomplished 

 something ; the surveyors had made an accurate map 

 of a large tract of quite unknown country ; the 

 naturalists had made valuable collections of birds and 

 animals, and some most interesting races of men had 

 been visited and studied. 



But beneath these was another feeling of vague 

 disappointment. We had set out full of hope, if not 

 of confidence, of reaching the Snow Mountains, and 

 the disappointment of not having set foot on them 

 w^as aggravated by the fact that we had been so long 

 in sight of them. It was exasperating beyond words 



