BREAKING THE GROUND 
and these altered conditions were not without their 
visible effect on animated nature, for at Mafalu the 
insects changed, and we secured a fine selection of 
Lepidoptera we had not met with before. 
This brief sketch of the configuration and condi- 
tions of the country through which we travelled may, 
I trust, serve as a key to the more detailed account 
of our journey, and with the directions and altitudes 
thus succinctly placed before him, the reader may 
possibly find it easier to follow us up hill and down 
dale. ‘There is one more point I would venture to 
impress upon him, a point which will recur again and 
again—he may fancy ad nauseam—the difficulties of 
transport in Papua. But that was the main crux of our 
experience, and its importance can hardly be realised 
by one who has not undergone similar troubles. You 
are entirely in the hands of the natives, without 
whom you cannot stir a foot. All your impedimenta, 
your food, stores, scientific implements, and “trade”’ 
(material for barter, the equivalent of ready money) 
must go on the backs of your cannibal friends, a 
people without organisation, who are hard to collect 
and hard to persuade to follow you. It is necessary 
to rely on yourself to secure followers, though here 
and there a chief may aid you. One such, the greatest 
‘“‘character”’ we encountered in Papua, will be intro- 
duced to the reader at the proper place. On the 
march continual apprehension besets the traveller lest 
his carriers bolt, for if this happened in the interior 
he would be done for, and he would have a terrible 
business to get out of the country, if indeed he got 
out at all. Hence the reason why I have dwelt on 
32 
