Adventures in New Guinea James Chalmers

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get the taro cooked for Maka, rose again and fetched more firewood, then
sat down in front of the path, looking steadily and anxiously for the
travellers. Poor body! they came in sight, but her son was not one of
them. She seemed to feel it very much, rose, went to her house, and was
not seen again until this morning. God grant the day is near when the
song the heavenly host sang, "Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth
and good will toward men," shall be known and enjoyed here!
_September_ 1_st_.--We left this morning at seven o'clock and drew up at
Makapili at four p.m., resting by the way. For salt, tobacco, and beads,
we had help all the way. What appears a fine level plain in the distance
turns out to be a fine country, full of ridges and luxuriant valleys,
abounding in every kind of native vegetable. From the departure this
morning until our bringing-up we could have ridden horses at a fine
canter along the ridges from one to another. This is the best country I
have yet seen in New Guinea, and the natives seem very kind and friendly.
At the Laroki we had to strip, and, just above small rapids, holding on
by a long line fastened to poles on each side, we crossed over. The
natives have the line to help them when the river is up. We called at
several villages on the ridges, passed others, some on large table-rocks.
Fancy a table-rock with twenty or thirty houses on it. At Chokinumu, a
village 1600 feet above the sea, S.E. from Marivaenumu seven miles, we
alarmed the people so that they rushed away, leaving us the village.
Shortly a man came back, pretending to be very unconcerned, chewing betelnut;
we soon were friends, and he called out to the others, and they
returned. We told him where we were going, and he said he and his wife
would accompany us, as we were the first foreigners who had ever been to
his village, and he would not leave us. At other villages they also
cleared out, screaming terribly. Gimenumu, 1900 feet above sea-level,
and two miles east from Chokinumu, will make a fine mission station--a
large village, fine plantations, and plenty of water. We crossed several