

19 



spaces were reached, evidently known rest camps, where we halted ten 

 minutes to rest the carriers. 



After a tedious climb up the flanks of the spurs, clothed in high forest, 

 one emerges on to cleared narrow ridges, covered with long grass, showing 

 the first signs of cultivation, where a beautiful view opens out, on the 

 one side to the blue island-dotted waters of Geelvink Bay over the 

 foot-hills and the flat inundation-belt just passed through, which spreads 

 out like a green table, and on the other side across the Momi valley to the 

 central mountain range with its many outlying spurs. After more climbing, 

 bamboo thickets evidently planted, with the magic plant of Malaya, Justida 

 Gandarussa, never known to set seed, further confirm the impression of man's 

 vicinity. Fine forest succeeded these abandoned gardens, from which we 

 emerged on to old " kebuns " on the broad crest of the lower Serao range. 

 Here were the Serao houses, surrounded by present cultivation, where 

 we were very well received by the korano and his charming wife, the 

 prettiest Papuan woman seen, though many are nice-looking. 



The Serao people great friends of Manao's cordially invited me to 

 sleep in their house ; but as all the Papuans with the Japanese streamed in, 

 to say nothing of the original inhabitants, I decided to camp outside in a 

 newly made " kebun," with the " Pradjoerit" and " Orang ranteV' 



The korano's house was very large, with split-bamboo flooring and a few 

 small partitions, while against each side a narrow strip was thickly sanded 

 over for fires. Opposite the entrance a second door opened on to a balcony, 

 commanding a lovely view over the dip of the ridge to the immediate Momi 

 valley and the further spurs of the Arfak. A house inhabited by a head- 

 hunting tribe was pointed out on the slopes below. 



Native Plantations. 



In the " kebuns " the luxuriance of the crops and method in cultivation 

 is surprising. Sweet potatoes of very fine quality, gourds, plantains etc., 

 and papayas, the latter replaced by maize and tobacco as the altitude 

 increases, with some of the finest sugar-cane I have seen, are planted, 

 the standing crops in diagonals alternately, with sweet potatoes and gourds, 

 chiefly Lagenaria hispida, as undercrops. 



Some of these plantations were situated on the steepest slopes, where, 

 toiling up in the pitiless sun, one sinks to one's kneos in fine deep soil. 

 Fortunately there are always many logs lying in succession as they were 

 felled, which facilitate the ascent. 



The plantations or gardens are surrounded by a strong double stockade 

 against wild pig, with notched poles slanting both ways at certain points for 

 ingress and egress. One or two communal houses are generally built in the 

 middle of the plantation, each on a maze of criss-crossed poles, about 20 

 from the ground, with a veranda back and front, approached by a notched 



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