He Indicated A
Spot About The Centre Of The Island Where He Thought I Might
Advantageously Stay A Few Days.
I accordingly visited Makariki
with him the next day, and he instructed the chief of the village
to furnish me with men to carry my baggage, and accompany me on
my excursion.
As the people of the village wanted to be at home
on Christmas-day, it was necessary to start as soon as possible;
so we agreed that the men should be ready in two days, and I
returned to make my arrangements.
I put up the smallest quantity of baggage possible for a six
days' trip, and on the morning of December 18th we left Makariki,
with six men carrying my baggage and their own provisions, and a
lad from Awaiya, who was accustomed to catch butterflies for me.
My two Amboyna hunters I left behind to shoot and skin what birds
they could while I was away. Quitting the village, we first
walked briskly for an hour through a dense tangled undergrowth,
dripping wet from a storm of the previous night, and full of mud
holes. After crossing several small streams we reached one of the
largest rivers in Ceram, called Ruatan, which it was necessary to
cross. It was both deep and rapid. The baggage was first taken
over, parcel by parcel, on the men's heads, the water reaching
nearly up to their armpits, and then two men returned to assist
me. The water was above my waist, and so strong that I should
certainly have been carried off my feet had I attempted to cross
alone; and it was a matter of astonishment to me how the men
could give me any assistance, since I found the greatest
difficulty in getting my foot down again when I had once moved it
off the bottom. The greater strength and grasping power of their
feet, from going always barefoot, no doubt gave them a surer
footing in the rapid water.
After well wringing out our wet clothes and putting them on, we
again proceeded along a similar narrow forest track as before,
choked with rotten leaves and dead trees, and in the more open
parts overgrown with tangled vegetation. Another hour brought us
to a smaller stream flowing in a wide gravelly bed, up which our
road lay. Here w e stayed half an hour to breakfast, and then
went on, continually crossing the stream, or walking on its stony
and gravelly banks, till about noon, when it became rocky and
enclosed by low hills. A little further we entered a regular
mountain-gorge, and had to clamber over rocks, and every moment
cross and recross the water, or take short cuts through the
forest. This was fatiguing work; and about three in the
afternoon, the sky being overcast, and thunder in the mountains
indicating an approaching storm, we had to loon out for a camping
place, and soon after reached one of Mr. Rosenberg's old ones.
The skeleton of his little sleeping-hut remained, and my men cut
leaves and made a hasty roof just as the rain commenced.
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