_Difficulties of Food—Coolies’ Rations—Choice
of Provisions—Transporting Supplies up the
Mimika—Description of the River—A Day’s Work—Monotonous
Scenery—Crowned Pigeons—Birds of Paradise and
Others—Snakes, Bees and other Creatures—Rapids and Clear
Water—The Seasons—Wind—Rain—Thunderstorms—Halley’s Comet._
One of the principal obstacles in the way of successful exploration
in Dutch New Guinea is the lack of food in the country itself. It is
true that in the low-lying swampy districts near the coast there are
plenty of Sago-palms, but the majority of Malays are not sago eaters
except under compulsion, and the preparation of sago to make it only
tolerably palatable is a tedious business. Moreover the first object of
an expedition to the mountains is to leave the swamps behind as soon
as possible. So it follows that every scrap of food, for the coolies
as well as for the Europeans, has to be brought into the country from
outside, and it will be evident that, when the means of transport
are distressingly slow, the provisions must diminish considerably in
quantity as they are carried towards the interior.
[Sidenote: SUPPLIES]
The mainstay of the food of Malay coolies and soldiers is rice, of
which the daily ration is one _katti_ (1-1/3 pounds); to this is
added about a quarter of a pound of dried meat or dried fish. Once or
twice a week the rice was replaced by _kachang ijau_, a small round
green bean, which is supposed to be of use in preventing the onset of
beri-beri, though it is very doubtful whether this is the case; the
beans are boiled and are eaten either with salt or with brown Javanese
sugar. A full ration for a coolie also includes tea, coffee, salt and
chillies. When it is remembered that the numbers of the expedition
were never less than one hundred and twenty and were often more than
one hundred and sixty, and since it was considered advisable always
to have a supply for several months in advance in the eventuality of
communication with Amboina becoming impossible, it can be imagined that
the amount of stores necessary for the whole party was no small thing.
The management of the stores of Cramer’s party alone, of which every
detail had to be accounted for to the Government, occupied the full
time of a Dutch sergeant and a native clerk.
Not only was a great deal of labour involved in dealing with such
an immense bulk of stores, but there was considerable difficulty
in preserving them from the ill effects of the climate. Our first
consignment of rice arrived in sacks, and the futility of that method
of packing was apparent, when a great quantity of it was spoilt by a
shower of rain between the steamer and the base-camp. The next lot
was packed in tins with lids; when these were turned upside down the
rice trickled out or water trickled in, and again a large quantity was
lost or spoilt. After that it was put into tins of which the tops were
soldered down, but even that was not quite successful, for it often
happened that a pin-hole was left unsoldered, through which moisture
would eventually find its way and the rice be spoilt.
Even more difficult than the rice to keep dry were the dried fish
and dried meat, which were sent to us packed in wooden boxes; the
stuff quickly became sodden from the moisture-laden atmosphere, and
although we kept coolies constantly employed in drying it in the sun,
an enormous amount of it became rotten and was thrown away. The only
effectual method of preserving the dried meat and fish is to seal it up
like the rice in soldered tins. The tin always used for this purpose
is the rectangular tin in which kerosene oil is imported to the East;
filled with rice it weighs about forty pounds.
In writing the history of this expedition I should not be honest if I
were to refrain from mentioning the fact that some of our own stores
were, to say the least, ill-chosen. It appeared that a large quantity
of stores had been bought from the Shackleton Expedition, which had
returned from the Antarctic a few months before we left England.
However suitable those provisions may have been for a Polar expedition,
they were not the sort of thing one would have chosen for a journey in
the Tropics. For instance, large tins of “bully-beef” are excellent in
a cold climate, but when you open them near the Equator you find that
they consist of pallid lumps of pink flesh swimming in a nasty gravy.
Pea-soup and pea-flour, of which we had nearly four hundred pounds’
weight, strike terror into the stoutest heart, when the temperature is
86° in the shade. Pickles are all very well in their way for those that
like them, but one hundred and sixty bottles was more than a generous
allowance. _Punch_, in commenting on a newspaper misprint which stated
that “the British Ornithologists Union Expedition to Papua was joined
at Singapore by ten pickled Gurkhas,” suggested that it was “no doubt
a misprint for gherkins.” We were glad that Mr. Punch was mistaken and
that we had not increased our store of pickles at Singapore.
The packing was almost as remarkable as the choice of the stores
themselves: they were secured in strong packing cases of large and
variable size fastened with bands of iron and an incredible number of
nails, suitable enough to withstand the banging of Polar storms, but
not well adapted to their present purpose. The boxes were all too big
for convenient transport, and as each one was filled with food of one
kind only every box had to be opened at once and a selection made from
them.
[Sidenote: SUPPLIES]
Here it must be said that, in response to our comments on the stores
and the packing, the Committee sent out to us an excellent supply of
provisions from Messrs. Fortnum and Mason, properly packed in light
“Vanesta” cases. These reached us at the end of August and during the
rest of our stay in the country we fared well.
[Illustration: JANGBIR AND HERKAJIT, GURKHAS.]
We took with us a small supply of whisky and brandy, which was often
acceptable, and I believe that in an excessively damp climate a small
quantity of alcohol may be beneficial. The Dutch took with them dry
Hollands gin, which is drunk with a small quantity of bitters before
dinner; it certainly has the effect of coaxing your appetite for tinned
foods, all of which, when you have lived on them for a few months, have
the same dull taste.
It may be thought that the above discourse on the subject of food
is unduly long, but I shall make no apology for it, because equally
with the question of transport the question of food is of paramount
importance. The recital of some of the mistakes that we made may
serve as a warning to others, who wish to visit a similar district.
In countries like Africa and many parts of Asia, where the people
cultivate the soil and where there are numbers of game animals, you may
always look forward to varying your fare with some fresh food, either
animal or vegetable; but when you go to New Guinea you must be prepared
to live wholly on dried and tinned foods, and that is only possible
when they are varied and of the best manufacture.
[Sidenote: THE MIMIKA RIVER]
During the first months of our stay in New Guinea most of the energies
of the expedition were spent in transporting supplies from the
base-camp at Wakatimi to the camp at Parimau up the Mimika River. And
indeed it may be said that this was one of the principal occupations of
the expedition from beginning to end; for our coolies were very soon
worn out by sickness and the unaccustomed labour, so that they had to
be sent back to their homes, and by the time that a fresh batch of
coolies arrived in the country the store of provisions at Parimau was
exhausted and the process of taking up a fresh supply had to be begun
again.
It was not until our third batch of coolies came at the end of
December, that we were able to accumulate enough stores at Parimau
to serve as a base for a moderately long expedition from that place.
Before that time it had never been possible to make a longer march than
three days from Parimau, and there had been long periods when from
lack of coolies everything had been at a standstill. Those times were
of course excessively trying both to the health and to the tempers of
the members of the expedition. It was irksome beyond words to see day
after day the mountains in the distance and to be unable to move a step
nearer to them.
[Illustration: HAULING CANOES UP THE MIMIKA.]
The distance from Wakatimi to Parimau, though only twenty-two miles as
the crow flies, was about forty miles by water, and it took from five
to seven days, according to the state of the river, to accomplish the
journey in canoes. While the coolies were still comparatively fresh,
we sometimes sent off as many as six canoes at a time from Wakatimi to
Parimau, but with sickness and fatigue their numbers quickly diminished
and two or three canoes laden with stores, accompanied by one “escort”
canoe manned by Javanese soldiers and convicts, was the size of the
usual river “transport.” The larger canoes were paddled by five or six
and the smaller by four men; the average load carried by one canoe was
about eight hundred pounds’ weight, of which a considerable amount
was consumed on the journey. The men were given one day’s rest at
Parimau, they came down the river in two days and rested for two days
at Wakatimi before starting up the river again. One of us accompanied
them on nearly every journey with a view to preventing the men from
lingering too many days on the voyage and partly as a protection from
the natives, who paid great respect to us but were inclined to behave
rudely to the coolies, if they were not accompanied by an European.
Those days of canoeing up the Mimika River were some of the most
monotonous of my life and I shall never forget them. For the first
few miles above Wakatimi the river is about as wide as the Thames at
Windsor, the banks are covered with smallish trees with here and there
clumps of palm trees, from which fresh young coconuts may be gathered.
Occasionally the rising tide helps you on your way, and if you are
particularly fortunate you may even see at the end of a straight
reach of the river a glimpse of the distant mountains. But very soon
the river narrows to half its width, the huge trees of the regular
New Guinea jungle shut out all except a narrow strip of sky, and the
river twists and meanders towards all the points of the compass,
until you wonder whether it will not eventually bring you back to the
point whence you started. There was one bend of the river which was
particularly remarkable; it made an almost complete circle of about a
mile and a half in circumference, ending at a point exactly forty yards
distant from its commencement, so that by landing and walking across a
narrow neck you could wait for more than half an hour for the canoes to
overtake you.
The rate of travel varied with the efficiency of the coolies and
according to the strength of the current in the river, which was
sometimes very sluggish, and at other times came swirling down at three
or four miles an hour. We cleared camping places at various points
along the river, and, if the pace was good, the average stage was about
six hours, though it often took ten or even twelve hours when the river
was in flood. The pleasantest camping places were on mudbanks, where
the coolies could bathe and pitch their tents without trouble, but they
were very liable to be flooded by a sudden rise of the river during the
night, and we generally had our own tents pitched on a space cleared in
the jungle at the top of a steep bank.
[Sidenote: CANOEING UP THE MIMIKA]
It will be convenient to describe a day’s voyage up the Mimika by
taking an extract from my diary:—
“May 13. The monotony of the river is beyond words, and
one day is almost exactly like another. I get up at
six o’clock and breakfast off cocoa and biscuits and
butter, whilst the camp is coming down, _i.e._ tents,
etc., being packed. Spend the next hour or rather more
in hurrying on the coolies with their food, which they
ought always to begin to cook half an hour earlier than
they do. See everything put into the canoes and then
start with the last. After that anything from five to
twelve hours’ sitting on a damp tent with one’s feet in
more or less (according to the weather) water swishing
from side to side of the canoe. Sometimes I paddle, but
not so much now as I did the first time I came up the
river, not from laziness but because the irregular
time is so horribly irritating. If the coolies would
only paddle lazily but regularly all would be well, but
they will not; they paddle all together furiously for
perhaps twenty or thirty strokes and then vary between a
haphazard rag-time and doing nothing at all.
“Most of the time I watch the banks go by and wonder
how long it will take us to get to the end of this
reach, which bears a remarkable resemblance to the last
and to the next. The jungle is as ugly as it can be,
rank undergrowth, trailing rattans and scraggy rotting
trees. In forty miles I do not think there are half a
dozen big trees worth looking at. Very occasionally you
see a flowering creeper, one with clusters of white
flowers is here and there, and I have seen a few of the
gorgeous flaming D’Albertis creeper (_Mucuna pruriens_).
Butterflies are seldom seen and birds one hardly hears at
all. The banks are steep slimy brown mud, littered with
the trunks and limbs of rotten trees, which also stick up
all over the river like horrid muddy bones.
“Altogether it is as gloomy and depressing as it can
be, there is no view, not even a glimpse to shew that
we are getting near a mountain range. In the midst of
all this it generally rains hard and you arrive in
camp soaking wet. Then see everything taken out of the
canoes, tents pitched, canoes securely moored, food
given out to the coolies, and by that time it is well
on into the afternoon. Wet wood is somehow coaxed into
boiling a kettle and I get a cup of tea, very good. At
six o’clock the meal of the day, rice or a tin, but one
eats very little on these journeys. After dinner a book
and tobacco and to bed about nine o’clock, or earlier
if the mosquitoes are troublesome. It does not compare
favourably with being ‘on safari’ in Africa, and I
frequently wish myself back on one of those interminable
roads which I have so often cursed.”
[Sidenote: BIRDS]
But it must not be supposed that there were not occasional pleasant
moments, which to some extent were compensation for the monotony of
those days. Sometimes you saw a Crowned Pigeon (_Goura sclateri_) by
the water’s edge, and by paddling quietly you could approach within
a few yards before it flew lazily across the river and alighted on a
low branch. The Crowned Pigeon is one of the handsomest of New Guinea
birds; it is as big as a large domestic fowl, of an uniform mauve grey
colour with a large white patch on the wings, and on its head is a
crest of delicate grey plumes, which it opens and shuts like a fan.
These birds feed mostly on fruits, but they also eat small molluscs
and crabs, which they pick up on the river bank. As they were almost
the only eatable birds in the country, we killed a good many of them,
but their numbers appeared to be in no way diminished when we left the
country; the flesh is white and excessively dry.
[Illustration: A PAPUAN OF MIMIKA WITH CLOSELY PLAITED HAIR.]
The little red King Bird of Paradise (_Cicinnurus regius_) is heard
calling everywhere, and from the upper waters of the river you
hear the harsh cry of the Greater Bird of Paradise (_Paradisea novae
guineae_), but both of these are birds of the dense forest and I do not
remember ever having seen one from the river.
Green and red Eclectus Parrots (_Eclectus pectoralis_) and white
Lemon-crested Cockatoos are fairly numerous and their harsh screams,
though sufficiently unpleasing are a welcome interruption of the
prevailing silence.
Lories were not often seen on the river journeys, but they were
extremely common near Wakatimi, where a certain clump of trees was used
by them as a regular roosting-place. For an hour or more before sunset
countless hundreds of Lories (_Eos fuscata_) flew in flocks from all
directions towards the roosting-trees, chattering loudly as they flew
and even louder after they had perched. Often a branch would give way
under the living weight and then the whole throng would rise in the air
again and circle round and round before they alighted once more and the
shouting and chattering continued until it was dark.
Crocodiles were very seldom seen, but Iguanas of two or three feet
in length were often seen sunning themselves on a log or a stump,
from which they would splash hurriedly into the water as the canoes
approached. Several times at night I heard a splash as loud as the
plunge of a man into water, but I could never discover what was the
animal that caused it; there may yet possibly be some large unknown
reptile in the river. Snakes were sometimes seen curled up in the
overhanging vegetation and very commonly they were found swimming in
the water; one day I counted eleven small harmless snakes swimming
within half a mile of the same place.
On many days during the months of May and June the river swarmed with
large bright yellow flies very similar to, but about twice the size
of, the Green Drake of the fly-fisher. They hatched out about mid-day
and took longer or shorter flights over the water, rising from it and
alighting again like miniature aeroplanes. Many of them fell a prey
to swallows and bee-eaters and other insect-eating birds, while the
rest were quickly drowned, and I have seen long stretches of the river
completely covered by the dead insects.
At some of the camps on the river and elsewhere we were a good
deal bothered by small bees, the Stingless Honey-bee (_Melipona
praeterita_). These annoying little creatures—they are about half the
size of the common house-fly—buzzed about you in swarms and strove most
persistently to settle on any exposed part of your body in pursuit of
the sweat, which is never absent from you in those places. No matter
how you beat about and killed them they were back again immediately and
once, while writing, I kept my hands quite still on the book and in a
few moments I counted forty-six on my two hands before their crawling
became unbearable. They have a disagreeably sticky feeling as they
crawl over you and your hands, when you have squashed a number of them,
become sticky too.
[Sidenote: NIGHT ON THE RIVER]
At night, when the rain was not drumming ceaselessly on the roof of
the tent, the silence was broken now and then by the grating call of a
Brush Turkey (_Talegallus fuscirostris_)[6]; or a flock of Pale Crows
(_Gymnocorax senex_), which are curiously nocturnal in their habits,
would fly over the camp cawing like muffled rooks. Lizards and frogs
uttered all sorts of strange cries and whistles, and the mournful
unbirdlike note of the Frogmouth (_Podargus papuensis_) was heard on
every side.
Sometimes, even when there was no wind stirring, you would hear at
night a noise like thunder as some great tree went crashing down. Most
of the trees in the jungle do not attain a very great girth, but they
grow up very rapidly to reach the light and in their upper branches
there is soon accumulated a dense mass of climbers and parasitic
plants, which in the course of time become too heavy for the tree and
cause it to collapse. The floor of the jungle is strewn with the limbs
and trunks of fallen trees and the smell of rotting wood is everywhere.
The last, usually the fifth, day of the journey up the river was always
pleasant, partly because one knew that there were only a few more hours
of the tedious voyage, and partly because the scenery was beginning
to change. Beautiful Tree-ferns appeared upon the banks and the soil,
firmer than in the swampy lands near the coast, supported trees of
finer growth. Scattered pebbles and then banks of clean sand and
shingle began to take the place of the hideous mud of the lower river,
and after spending, as frequently happened, many weeks at Wakatimi,
where the smallest pebble would have been an object of wonder, it was a
peculiar pleasure to feel the grit of stones under your feet again. At
the same time the cocoa-brown water became clear and sparkling and one
drank it for the very pleasure of drinking. Going further we came to
rapids, where the river ran over stones, or piled-up barriers of fallen
trees. Passages were cut through many of these obstacles, but every
succeeding flood brought down more trees and new barriers were formed.
When the river was low, the last four miles to Parimau were covered by
wading and hauling the canoes over or under the great logs. Every man
had to get out of the canoe and do his share of the work, and sometimes
we had to take the cargo out as well, when the canoe had to be dragged
over a particularly high obstacle. When the river was in flood, the
last day’s journey was the most arduous of all, and it sometimes took
twelve or fourteen hours’ hard labour to accomplish it. The water was
then too deep for poling, and the current was so swift that vigorous
paddling hardly did more than prevent the canoe from following the
stream, and it was only by dodging from one side of the river to the
other and by hauling on overhanging branches that progress was made.
[Illustration: HEAD-DRESSES MADE OF PLAITED FIBRES, WORN AT FESTIVALS
AND CEREMONIES. 1. IS ORNAMENTED WITH TUFTS OF PLUMES OF THE GREATER
BIRD OF PARADISE.]
Considering the want of skill of the coolies and the great number of
journeys that were made up and down the river, it was wonderful that
no accidents of any consequence occurred. It is true that a good
many canoes capsized—I think all of us had at least one involuntary
ducking—but a well-laden canoe is comparatively steady, and most of
the upsets happened to empty canoes going down the river and nothing
was lost but coolies’ scanty baggage, which was easily replaced. The
Javanese coolies of the escort, who were even less skilled watermen
than ours, suffered rather more accidents, but one boat-load of
provisions and two rifles were the total of their losses.
[Sidenote: THE LONG WET SEASON]
There were periods, lasting for several weeks, when the river was
almost continually in flood, and there were other, but always shorter,
periods when the river was low; but though we spent fifteen months in
New Guinea the time was not long enough to determine at all accurately
the limits of the seasons, for the first three months of 1911 differed
considerably from the corresponding months of the previous year.
Speaking generally, it may be said of the Mimika district that the
weather from mid-October to the middle of April is finer than the
weather from the middle of April to the middle of October. These two
periods correspond more or less with the monsoons, but it is notable
that whereas in British New Guinea the period of the Eastern monsoon,
May to November, is the drier, here the reverse is the case. The finest
weather appears to be in November and December, and the wettest weather
is in July, August and September. The terms “fine” and “wet” are used
only relatively, for it is almost always wet. In the first twelve
months of our stay rain fell on three hundred and thirty days. It was
very unfortunate that we did not provide ourselves with rain-gauges
for use at Wakatimi and Parimau, where interesting observations
might have been recorded for a year or more. A roughly constructed
rain-gauge, which was used for a short time, more than once recorded
a fall of over six inches of rain in one night, and that was in the
comparatively dry season of March.
A great deal of the rain fell in thunderstorms. From January 4th, 1910,
to January 4th, 1911, I heard thunder on two hundred and ninety-five
days, not including days on which I saw distant lightning but did not
hear the thunder.
Before we left England it was thought that the party ought to include
a geologist, but it was impossible to add to our numbers, which
were already sufficiently great. As it fell out, we hardly reached
geological country at all and a geologist would have spent an idle
time, but there would have been plenty of occupation for a well
equipped hydrologist.
The winds, whether from the East or from the West, were very variable
both in force and constancy. Sometimes there would blow a fierce wind
for two or three days followed by several days of calm. At other times
a steady wind would blow for two or three weeks and so great would be
the surf on the sea-shore that no ship could approach the mouth of the
river. The wind usually dropped before sunset and the nights were calm.
[Sidenote: HALLEY’S COMET]
It followed naturally from the heavy rainfall that the nights were
seldom clear, and at one time Marshall waited for three months before
he could take an observation from a star. But there were times even
in the wet weather, when the rain poured down during the day and at
night the heavens were clear. One of these times fortunately occurred
in May, when Halley’s Comet was approaching the Earth. On May 9th the
comet, looking like a muffled star, was seen in the East and its tail,
a broad beam of brilliant light, extended upwards through about thirty
degrees. Below the comet and a little to the South of it Venus shone
like a little moon, appearing far bigger than any planet I have ever
seen. The comet grew enormously and in the early morning of May 14th,
the last time that we saw it completely before it had passed the Earth,
the tail blazed across the heavens like an immense search-light beam to
the zenith and beyond. On May 26th it appeared again in the evening,
reduced in size to about forty-five degrees, and several nights we
watched it growing always smaller, until it vanished from our sight.
Superlative expressions will not describe Halley’s Comet as we saw
it in New Guinea; it was a wonderful appearance and one never to be
forgotten. Our coolies and the Javanese declared that it portended much
sickness and death. Though we tried to question them about it, we never
learnt how it impressed the minds of the natives.