AMONG PAPUAN PEAKS 
when they are once there the mother squeezes the 
milk into their mouths. 
We found the village of Mafulu very small and the 
people extremely shy. One or two men were about, 
and the women were at work in their gardens. We 
sent on some of our men to discover the best possible 
camping-place, a work of considerable difficulty, for 
there are no plateaux in the Owen Stanley range, and 
the contour of the ground, as I have already indicated, 
is terribly abrupt. In fact, when one has travelled for 
some weeks in these regions, a peculiar habit of 
walking is acquired, which is somewhat equivalent 
to a sailor’s sea-legs. This acquisition the traveller 
does not find out until he returns to low, flat ground, 
when he suddenly realises that he is stumbling at 
every step, and some practice is required to recover 
the ordinary method of locomotion, and he has to 
break himself of the habit of lifting his knees almost 
to his nose. About an hour’s march from the village 
the men discovered a fairly level spot, and by the 
time we came up they had, with axes and knives, 
begun to cut a clearing of the undergrowth to enable 
us to pitch our camp. We set up our own fly-tent 
and the natives’ two tents and built a large fire, for 
it was very cold and the boys were beginning to feel 
the climate of that high elevation. Indeed, during 
our whole stay at Mafulu we felt the stress of the 
climate severely. ‘That first night was very chilly, 
and it was necessary to serve out blankets to the 
natives in order to enable them to withstand the 
cold. They slung their hammocks on sticks or trees, 
sometimes one above the other, and close to these they 
248 
