It was not till eleven o’clock that night that they turned in. But when they did so it was with a satisfied feeling that every detail had been attended to. Not the least satisfactory result of the day had been Jack’s achievement of perfecting the portable wireless which would keep them at all times in touch with the yacht.
The next morning dawned bright and clear. The boys were up before any of the rest of the party, dressed in khaki suits, sun helmets and stout leggings, for much of the way would lie through ragged bush. Each lad carried a water canteen, a pocket filter, compass, knife, and wore a service revolver attached to a cartridge belt. In these “uniforms” they looked very business-like, and capable of giving a good account of themselves in any emergency. Soon after the other members of the party appeared somewhat similarly attired. Mr. Jukes’ pockets bulged with boxes of dyspepsia pills, and Muldoon wore his sailor uniform with the addition of leggings and a sun helmet.
“Shure I look like a sea soldier no liss,” was the way he summed up his appearance, and the boys couldn’t help agreeing with him.
While they were at breakfast, Salloo and his “bearers” presented themselves.
Salloo greeted them with a low “salaam,” and volunteered the information that:
“Him welly good day for makum start. Go many miles. Good trail for first part of journey.”
“Well, the further we go, the quicker we’ll get back,” commented Muldoon in true Irish style.
At eight o’clock they were off. Nobody in the town knew the true object of their expedition, but supposed they were off on a hunt for entomological specimens, for New Guinea swarms with rare forms of insect life and many intrepid collectors have found it a happy hunting ground, some of them paying for their devotion to science with their lives.
At first the question of traveling on horse-back had been mooted. But Salloo promptly vetoed this. The country was too rough and thickly grown to make horse-back travel feasible for more than a few miles, he declared. They might have used the river, but it was only navigable for a short distance when the swift current and the shoals made it dangerous for up-stream travel. Natives coming down it always abandoned their dugouts, which were simply hollow trees, at Bomobori, and went back to their villages on foot.
The town was soon left behind and they struck into a trail which was broad and well trodden. On all sides were dense groves of tropical vegetation, towering palms, spreading mangoes laden with golden fruit, that ever-present banana and fragrant guava and lemon trees. From the tall lance-wood and cotton trees great creepers and lianas, looking like serpents, twined and coiled. There was a moist, steaming heat in the air.