There are indeed a thousand things to interest one in the jungle, however blank and monotonous it may seem to be. The trouble is that so much of your attention in these places must be devoted to the trivial duties of the day, the eternal question of food, the care of the sick, the precautions against floods, and so on, that but little time is left over for studying the hidden wonders of the world about you. The geographers and the naturalists of the future will live in comfortable ships on the coast, whence they will fly daily into the heart of New Guinea where they will find things undreamt of now. But the time for that is not yet, and in the meantime those who plod on foot do the best they can.
CHAPTER XVIII
Departure from Parimau—Parting Gifts—Mock Lamentation—Rawling explores Kamura River—Start for the Wania—Lose the Propeller—A Perilous Anchorage—Unpleasant Night—Leave the Motor Boat—Village of Nimé—Arrival of “Zwaan” with Dayaks—Their Departure—Waiting for the Ship—Taking Leave of the People of Wakatimi—Sail from New Guinea—Ké Islands—Banda—Hospitality of the Netherlands Government—Lieutenant Cramer—Sumbawa—Bali—Return to Singapore and England—One or Two Reflexions.
After our return to Parimau in February, Rawling and Grant went down to Wakatimi, while Marshall and I spent a week in visiting the village of the Tapiro in a last but vain attempt to see the pygmy women. The first few days of March were occupied in packing up the accumulated odds and ends of our year’s occupation and on the 9th of March we were ready to depart. We had told the natives that we were going away and for days before we went they pestered us with questions as to whether we were coming back and what we would give them when we went, and they quickly decided which of our houses they intended to occupy.
BUTTRESSED TREES.
PARTING WITH THE NATIVES
On the morning of our departure from Parimau we allowed no natives to come into the camp until all the canoes were loaded up and ready for a start. Then we called out to them to come over and about forty men and boys splashed across the river and came swarming into the camp. We had kept for them a number of axe-heads, knives and other pieces of steel and iron, and when the people saw what they were going to be given they became a crowd of madmen. I distributed the things, while Marshall stood by with a big piece of wood and kept them from rushing into the place and seizing everything at once. They shouted and raved and screamed and grew almost pale with excitement, and the various expressions of greed and cunning and anger and delight in their faces were most interesting to watch.