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.
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.
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.
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