During the next three weeks we waited for the ship with what patience we could. By that time we were all somewhat stale and disinclined for any exertion, and those days of waiting at Wakatimi seemed interminably long. The only pleasant moments were when on fine evenings we could sit outside and watch the sun go down behind the palm trees across the river and hope each time that that would be the last. There were times when for two or three days a strong wind blew and we could hear the surf thundering on the beach, and we knew that even if the ship came it could not approach the shore. Then there were false alarms of whistles having been heard, or of boats seen coming up the river, but our suspense at last came to an end on April 5th, when a steam-launch towing a string of empty boats came puffing up to the camp, where they were received with immense enthusiasm. They came from the Dutch gunboat Mataram, which had been despatched to take away the native escort, and the next day came boats from the Zwaan, which had come to transport us and our men and the remaining stores of the expedition to Amboina. There followed two days of busy loading and coming and going of boats, during which our impatience to be off was a little allayed by the forethought of one of the officers of the Mataram, who stayed ashore with us and had brought with him that rare luxury, bread, and one or two other welcome delicacies.
DEPARTURE FROM WAKATIMI
Before sunset on April 7th the last boat was loaded and ready to go, and we had an amusing leave-taking with the people of Wakatimi. It was known that we were going to depart and for some days people from other villages had been crowding into Wakatimi. A large number of men were waiting outside the fence of the camp, but when we invited them to come inside they became unaccountably shy and would not venture. So I went outside and took one bolder fellow, a man whom we knew well, and led him by the arm to a hut, where there were a quantity of old mosquito nets; he seized one and bolted as fast as he could run, apparently thinking that there was something suspicious in this unwonted generosity. Then a few more came very warily after him and then fifty or sixty men dashed into the house and out again as soon as they had snatched up something, it mattered not what. Most of them were armed with spears or bows and arrows, and as there were men fighting to get into and out of the house at the same time it was wonderful that nobody was damaged.
When the people in Wakatimi saw what was going on in the camp they began to yell with excitement, and in a few seconds twenty or more canoes packed with men came paddling madly across the river; they were so excited that some of them upset the canoes, a thing they very seldom do, and they had to swim to the shore. For ten minutes or so the camp was a pandemonium. About two hundred raving lunatics were dashing madly from one house to another and carrying off boxes, sacks, mosquito nets, cases of empty bottles, bits of iron, tables, beds, mats and everything they could possibly move. They howled and raved and fought like wild beasts in a manner horrible to see.
Several women came over and danced and sang in a canoe just in front of the camp, while the crowd of people who had not been able to find a place in the canoes shrieked from the opposite bank. When they could carry no more, they loaded their canoes to the brim with miscellaneous cargoes and went back across the river to the village. There they at once began to squabble over the spoils, and the last we heard of Wakatimi, as darkness came down, were the shrill shrieks of quarrelsome women and the angry shouts of men.
THE LAST OF NEW GUINEA
New Guinea treated us kindly in farewell, and we steamed down the river in a glorious starlight, the kind of night which many people think is usual in the tropics, but is in fact most lamentably rare. We left Cramer on board the Mataram and went on to the Zwaan, where we soon were lulled to sleep by the pleasant music of the screw. Early the next morning a dull cloud on the northern horizon was our last view of New Guinea, and before night we had reached civilisation again in the anchorage of Dobo.
NEAR BULELING. ISLAND OF BALI.
Two days later we came to the Ké Islands and went ashore to visit the Catholic Mission at Toeal. There is nothing of great interest to see there except the magnificent “iron wood” timber, which is cut in the forests of the larger island, and is used for boat-building; it is obtained in larger pieces than teak, and it is said to be equally good. The fathers occupy themselves with carpentry and boat-building and with teaching a class of small children. The few people whom we saw appeared to be of a mixed Malay-Papuan race and were dressed in unspeakably dirty clothes.