_Sail from the Aru Islands—Sight New Guinea—Distant
Mountains—Signal Fires—Natives in Canoes—A British
Flag—Natives on Board—Their Behaviour—Arrival at
Mimika River—Reception at Wakatimi—Dancing and
Weeping—Landing Stores—View of the Country—Snow
Mountains—Shark-Fishing—Making the Camp—Death of W.
Stalker._
[Sidenote: ARRIVAL IN NEW GUINEA]
When we left the northernmost end of the Aru Islands behind us the
wind rose and torrents of rain descended, and the Arafura Sea, which
is almost everywhere more or less shoal water, treated us to the first
foul weather we had experienced since leaving England. At dawn on the
4th January we found ourselves in sight of land, and about five miles
south of the New Guinea coast. A big bluff mountain (Mount Lakahia)
a southern spur of the Charles Louis range determined our position,
and the head of the _Nias_ was immediately turned to the East. As we
steamed along the coast the light grew stronger, and we saw in the
far North-east pale clouds, which presently resolved themselves into
ghostly-looking mountains one hundred miles away. Soon the rising
sunlight touched them and we could clearly see white patches above
the darker masses of rock and then we knew that these were the Snow
Mountains of New Guinea, which we had come so far to see. Beyond an
impression of their remoteness and their extraordinary steepness we
did not learn much of the formation of the mountains from that great
distance and they were quickly hidden from our view, as we afterwards
found happened daily, by the dense white mists that rose from the
intervening land.
Following the coast rather more closely we soon found that our approach
was causing some excitement on shore. White columns of the smoke of
signal fires curled up from the low points of the land and canoes
manned by black figures paddled furiously in our wake, while others,
warned doubtless by the signals, put off from the land ahead of us and
endeavoured to intercept us in our course.
In some of the larger canoes there were as many as twenty men, and very
fine indeed they looked standing up in the long narrow craft which
they urged swiftly forward with powerful rhythmic strokes of their
long-shafted paddles. At the beginning of each stroke the blade of the
paddle is at right angles to the boat. As it is pulled backward the
propelling surface of the paddle is a little rotated outward, a useful
precaution, for the stroke ends with a sudden jerk as the paddle is
lifted from the water and the consequent shower of spray is directed
away from the canoe.
[Illustration: 1. 2. 3. CARVED WOODEN CLUBS. 4-10. STONE CLUBS.]
The shore was low and featureless, and it was impossible to identify
the mouths of the rivers from the very inaccurate chart. It was not
safe for the _Nias_ to approach the land closely on account of the
shoal water, so Capt. Van Herwerden dropped anchor when he had been
steaming Eastwards for about eight hours, and sent the steam launch
towards an inlet, where we could see huts, to gather information. A bar
of sand prevented the launch from entering the inlet, so they hailed
a canoe which ventured within speaking distance, and by repeating
several times “Mimika,” the only word of their language that we knew at
that time, learnt that we had overshot our destination by a few miles.
That canoe, it should be noted, was remarkable on account of two of
its crew. One of them held aloft an ancient Union Jack; the other was
conspicuously different from the scores of men in the canoes about us,
who were all frankly in a bare undress, by wearing an old white cotton
jacket fastened by a brass button which was ornamented with the head
of Queen Victoria. How the flag and the coat and the button came to
that outlandish place will never be known, but it is certain that they
must have passed through very many hands before they came there, for
certainly no Englishman had ever been there before.
When the launch returned to the ship a crowd of natives, fifty or sixty
at the least, came clambering on board leaving only one or two men in
each canoe to paddle after the steamer as we slowly returned towards
the Mimika. Two men were recognised by Capt. Van Herwerden as having
belonged to a party of natives from this coast, who had been taken some
years earlier to Merauke, the Dutch settlement near the southernmost
point of New Guinea. At Merauke they had got into mischief and had
been put in prison from which nine of them escaped, and these two men,
probably the only survivors of the party, had contrived to find their
way along four hundred miles of coast, peopled by hostile tribes, back
to their own country.
The behaviour of our new fellow passengers was very remarkable and
different from what one expected, though it was obvious enough at the
first glance that these were people totally different from the Malayan
races both in appearance and demeanour; yet there was none of that
exuberance of spirits, child-like curiosity and exhibition of merriment
and delight in their novel surroundings described by Wallace[3] and
Guillemard[4] and which I had myself seen on the coast of German New
Guinea. A few of them shook hands, or rather held hands, with us and
talked loudly and volubly, while the rest stared dumbly at us and
then wandered aimlessly about the ship seeking a chance to steal any
loose piece of metal. They showed no fear nor did they betray any
excitement nor any very keen curiosity about the marvellous things that
they were seeing for the first time. They were quite unmoved by the
spectacle of the windlass lifting up the anchor, and a casual glance
down the skylight of the engine room was enough for most of them. They
appeared to take everything for granted without question, and a stolid
stare was their only recognition of the wonderful works of the white
man’s civilisation. In one respect it is true they were not quite so
apathetic and that was in their appetite for tobacco, which they begged
from everyone on board, brown and white alike. When they had obtained a
supply, they sat in groups about the deck and smoked as unconcernedly
as though a passage in a steamship were an affair of every-day
occurrence in their lives.
[Sidenote: MOUTH OF THE MIMIKA]
By the time that we eventually anchored off the mouth of the Mimika
River it was beginning to grow dark, and Capt. Van Herwerden ordered
the natives on board to leave the ship, not having noticed that the
canoes had already departed towards the shore. No doubt this was a
preconcerted scheme of the natives who wanted to stay on board, but by
dint of much shouting two canoes were persuaded to return and take away
some of our passengers. It was then quite dark and there was a white
mist over the sea, and the spectacle of the procession of black figures
passing down the gangway into an apparent abyss, for the canoes were
invisible in the gloom, was singularly weird. There was not room for
all in the canoes, so about a score of fortunate ones had to stop on
board, where they slept in picturesque attitudes about the deck. Five
young men chose a place where the iron cover of the steering chain made
a pillow a few inches high; they lay on their sides all facing the same
way, their arms folded across their chests and their bent knees fitting
into the bend of the knees of the man in front, and so close together
that the five of them occupied a space hardly more than five feet
square.
Soon after daylight on the following day the steam launch left the
ship with a party to proceed up the Mimika and find a suitable place
for a base-camp. The river has a fine wide mouth about a mile across
guarded by a sand bar, through which runs a narrow channel navigable at
all stages of the tide except during rough weather. For some distance
the river is a noble stream two or three hundred yards wide winding
in fine sweeps between low mangrove-covered banks. About three miles
from the sea the river divides into an East and West branch. The East
branch, the Mimika proper, brings down not more than one-quarter of
the volume of water of the West branch, of which it may be said to be
a tributary. It is remarkable that the party who visited the Mimika in
1902 apparently overlooked the fact that the West branch is actually
the main river. Above the junction of the two branches the water of
the Mimika is of a brown chocolate colour which proclaims it, though
we did not know it at the time, to be a mere jungle stream rising from
comparatively low ground. The water of the West branch on the contrary
is pale in colour and at times of flood almost milky-white, being
charged with lime-stone from the high mountains where it rises.
[Sidenote: A WELCOME OF TEARS]
Proceeding for two or three miles up the Mimika, which had become above
the junction a comparatively insignificant stream forty or fifty yards
across and very tortuous, the exploring party in the steam launch
arrived at the village of Wakatimi situated on the right bank of the
river. The village was crowded with natives, numbering perhaps one
thousand people, who gave the visitors a most remarkable reception. As
soon as the boat appeared in sight the natives crowded down to the bank
and shouted shrilly, men, women and children. When they came nearer
the people threw themselves into the shallow water and many of them
plastered themselves with mud, while the women performed their curious
dance, if dance it can be called. It is not a concerted performance,
but rather a _pas seul_ executed by each woman independently of the
others, and it is a peculiarly ungraceful exhibition. The body is bent
forward from the hips, the hands rest on the knees or on the hips, and
then with a shuffling movement of the feet the woman swings herself
from side to side or up and down, always presenting her back and the
narrow strip of barkcloth, which usually hangs down like a tail behind,
to the astonished gaze of the spectator. She sings all the while a
monotonous whining chant and occasionally looks back over her shoulder,
as if to see that the onlooker is properly appreciative of her charms.
Many of the people both men and women on this and other occasions of
great excitement were so overcome with emotion that they actually shed
tears of rapture.[5] For many days after this boats were constantly
coming up the river from the ship, and they were always welcomed in a
similar manner by the natives.
The river was explored for a few miles further up, but the only
suitable place for a camp was found to be on the left bank of the river
immediately opposite to Wakatimi. Lieut. Cramer and a party of his
soldiers established themselves there the same afternoon and the work
of clearing the ground and landing the stores was immediately begun.
The _Nias_ was anchored about two miles outside the river and the
launch went very slowly when it had two or three heavily laden boats
to tow against the strong current of the river, so the business of
landing the expedition was a very slow one, and as there was at first
but very little space for pitching tents on the camping ground some
of us remained for a few days on board. During those days that were
spent on the ship outside the Mimika we had opportunities in the early
morning of getting a general idea of the broad features of the country.
At the top of the white sandy beach was in most places a narrow belt of
_Casuarina_ trees, which are accustomed to grow on sandy or stony soil.
They resemble pines and their pale stems have a fresh green foliage,
which is a pleasing contrast to the dense monotonous green of the
majority of the trees in the country. Behind the _Casuarina_ belt dense
jungle, for the first few miles consisting entirely of Mangroves and
beyond that of various trees, extends with hardly any rise of altitude
to the foot of the mountains thirty miles away. This last observation
was one of supreme importance and it affected the whole prospect and
conduct of the expedition. Those of us who had been to New Guinea
before had been accustomed to seeing a steep shore rising very quickly
to the hills. This is the usual formation along practically the whole
of the North coast of the island, also along a considerable extent of
the South-east coast and again on the West coast in the neighbourhood
of MacCluer Gulf. It was known of course that the South coast on both
sides of the mouth of the Fly River and about Prince Frederick Henry
Island was low swampy country, but it was assumed that, considering the
fact that the highest peaks of the Snow Mountains were known to be not
more than seventy miles from the sea, the foothills would certainly
extend to within a short distance of the coast.
[Sidenote: VIEW OF THE MOUNTAINS]
Before we had reached the country we had had the idea that in a few
days’ march we should find ourselves in the hills at perhaps three or
four thousand feet above the sea, but the view of the country which we
saw from the _Nias_ effectually put an end to any hopes of that kind.
It is probable that more searching enquiries made at Batavia would have
revealed the existence of this wide belt of low land, but it seldom
occurs to you to question the truth of such an assumption. However that
may be, a serious mistake was made and we paid for it dearly enough.
The mountains appeared to rise very steeply from the low ground, and
seen from a distance they appeared to be composed of parallel ridges
lying one behind the other, each one successively higher than the one
in front of it. It was only in certain lights, and more particularly
when the clouds began to form on them, that you could distinguish deep
and narrow valleys running into the mountains. The nearer ranges rose
steeply enough, but were not too steep to be covered with dense forest
easily discernible from a distance. The furthermost ridge on the other
hand rose in huge precipices of bare rock, which showed reddish yellow
in the morning sunlight with here and there downward stripes of black
colour, presumably water, and in other places streaks of pure white
rock. This precipice, of which more will be said later, grew smaller
towards the West until it ended at the deep valley, which divides the
Snow Mountains from the range of the Charles Louis Mountains.
In the opposite direction towards the East the range rises gradually,
until at a point about North-east from the Mimika three snow-capped
tops are seen. I use the word “top” advisedly, for these three points
are not peaks but are elevations on an otherwise fairly even mountain
outline. The vertical extent of the snow is not very great, a few
hundred feet at the most, the South face of the mountain being so steep
that snow cannot lie on it save on the horizontal terraces of the
strata, which could plainly be distinguished. Continuing the ridge East
from the three snow tops (Mount Idenburg) is a long plain of almost
level snow about three miles long. From the East end of the snow plain
a ridge of shattered rock, looking like Dolomite towers from that great
distance, forms a connection with Mount Carstensz, the highest point of
the range.
Seen from afar, Mount Carstensz appears to be of a different formation
from the rest of the range. Mr. Dumas of the Dutch Expedition to the
Utakwa River clearly identified masses of slate on the Southern face
from a distance of twenty miles, and this would quite account for its
different appearance. There are two principal tops, a Western black and
irregular rock with scattered patches of snow, and an Eastern top more
even in its outline and entirely covered with snow. Between the two a
glacier of moderate size flows down the South face of the mountain.
Still further East from Mount Carstensz could be seen yet other ridges,
apparently a continuation of the Carstensz ridge. Occasionally these
were covered with snow in the early morning, but no other points of
permanent snow could be seen from the Mimika, and indeed there is no
other until Mount Wilhelmina is reached more than one hundred miles
to the East. But studying the mountains with field glasses was an
occupation which could only be pursued for a short time, for the clouds
formed early on the ridges and by nine o’clock at the latest all the
higher mountains were hidden from view.
During the first two days that we lay off the Mimika we were visited by
numbers of natives in canoes, who came some to trade and some merely
to stare at the ship and the people on board. The articles that they
brought for sale consisted chiefly of fish, coconuts and bananas of
a very poor kind, though we afterwards came to regard these latter
as a delicious luxury. They also brought a few young pigs, young
cassowaries, and other birds and they received payment in beads, scraps
of cloth, empty bottles and tins and pieces of metal. It is worth while
to record, as showing the indolence of these people, that on the third
day no natives came to visit us. Those who had before come to look at
us had presumably satisfied their curiosity, while the others who had
come to barter were content with the treasures they had won, although
they might have added greatly to their wealth if they had had the
energy to catch a few fish or pick a few more coconuts.
[Sidenote: FISHING FOR SHARKS]
Another occupation, which served to pass the time, was fishing for
the sharks with which that shallow sea abounds. They are blunt-nosed
animals with large dusky patches on the skin. It is very seldom that
you see them at the surface of the water, and they appear to feed
always at the bottom. The first that was caught was found to be full of
fragments of large crabs. Nobody on board was found willing to eat the
flesh, though it is probable that a few months afterwards they would
have been less fastidious, so the fish was thrown overboard, and an
hour or two later a second shark, a monster about twelve feet long, was
hauled, on board, and on being opened it was found to be full of large
undigested lumps of (presumably) the first.
On January 8th those of us who had remained on the _Nias_ left the ship
and proceeded to Wakatimi, where we found that Lieut. Cramer and his
men had already done an immense amount of work in clearing the ground
for the camp. It appeared that the place chosen had been cleared of
forest at some time, for there were no large trees growing on it, but
it was covered with a dense jungle of shrubs and small trees, a foot or
so in thickness and a tangle of creepers. Already in four days a strip
along the river bank about eighty yards long and thirty yards wide had
been cleared of bush, and as time went on the clearing was gradually
extended until there were twenty acres or more of open ground about the
camp.
During the first two or three days the natives, who had assembled
in large numbers at the village of Wakatimi, helped a good deal in
clearing the ground and landing the stores. When the steam launch
towing the laden boats arrived at the camp they fell upon the boats
in hordes and quickly carried everything up the steep mud bank, but
this amusement palled upon them very soon, and they stood about doing
nothing and hampered the men at their work of unpacking. Accordingly a
stout wooden fence was built about the landward side of the camp and
over this they were content to gaze from morning till night. They stood
packed together five or six deep, and the press of those at the back
trying to catch a glimpse of what was going on was so great that two
or three times the fence fell bodily inwards, and with it a struggling
mass of black humanity; but it was not many days before their curiosity
was satisfied, and though they did not afford us very much assistance
it was fortunate that they were not inclined to molest or interfere
with us in any way.
[Sidenote: OUR FIRST LOSS]
We had only been in our camp at Wakatimi for one day and it already
seemed as if the place was beginning to show some sign of order, when
a melancholy tragedy threw a gloom over the spirits of the whole
expedition. On the afternoon of January 9th Mr. Wilfred Stalker, who
had had plenty of experience of tropical and Australian jungles, went
out from the camp taking his collecting gun to shoot some birds. The
usual daily rain began at about four o’clock, but as we were all busy
with various occupations in our tents his absence was not noticed until
after six o’clock, when it was already pitch dark and the rain was
falling in torrents. Beyond the camp was dense jungle intersected by
creeks and pools of water, difficult enough to traverse by day but
absolutely impassable in darkness, so there was nothing to be done that
night but to hope anxiously that Stalker’s bushcraft had prompted him
to make a shelter of some kind, if disaster had not already overtaken
him. At dawn Lieut. Cramer sent out parties of soldiers in all
directions, and soon all of us, Europeans, Gurkhas, and native soldiers
were out searching and shouting and firing shots. With some difficulty
we explained to the natives what had happened, and we offered them
large rewards if they were successful in finding him, and many of them
joined with us; but though the ground was carefully quartered and the
search was continued all that day and a part of the next not a trace
of him was found anywhere, and it was evidently hopeless that he could
ever be found alive. On the second day, when the search had been
abandoned, the natives were convinced of his fate, and two of the more
important people came over from the village and wailed loudly outside
his empty tent.
On January 12th all doubts as to his end were set at rest when a canoe
manned by four Papuans, smeared with mud as their custom is in such
circumstances, brought back his body from a creek about half a mile
from the camp, where it had been found. Up to that moment there had
been present in our minds the horrid suspicion that he might perhaps
have fallen the victim to foul play. We thought that natives finding
him wandering alone might have been tempted by his possessions and have
murdered him, but it was evidently not so and we could only hope that
by drowning death had come swiftly to him.
[Illustration: CAMP OF THE EXPEDITION AT WAKATIMI.]
[Illustration: A HOUSE FOR CEREMONIES, MIMIKA.]
[Sidenote: WILFRED STALKER]
We buried him under a tree about one hundred yards behind the camp, and
in the absence of the leader of the expedition, who had gone away with
Rawling and Cramer to reconnoitre the river above Wakatimi, I read the
short burial service. Besides Marshall and Shortridge and myself there
were a Dutch soldier, two convicts and about fifty Papuans, who stood
quietly in a wide circle about the grave. I think the ninetieth psalm
was never read to a more remarkable congregation. The grave was the
first of the graves of many who left their bones in New Guinea.
Wilfred Stalker was in his thirty-first year when he died. Previously
he had spent many years as a naturalist in Australia and several months
in New Guinea. Early in 1909 he returned to the East where he spent a
part of his time in engaging coolies for the New Guinea Expedition,
and he had time to make an interesting journey in the Island of Ceram,
where he made a remarkable zoological collection. He joined us at
Amboina on January 1st so that we had not time to know him well, but
his unflagging energy in the preparations at the base-camp, where
he landed with the first party, showed that he was a man whom the
expedition could ill afford to lose.