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. The baggage
was covered over with leaves, and the men sheltered themselves as they could
till the storm was over, by which time a flood came down the river, which
effectually stopped our further march, even had we wished to proceed. We then
lighted fires; I made some coffee, and my men roasted their fish and plantains,
and as soon as it was dark, we made ourselves comfortable for the night.
Starting at six the next morning, we had three hours of the same kind of
walking, during which we crossed the river at least thirty or forty times, the
water being generally knee-deep. This brought us to a place where the road left
the stream, and here we stopped to breakfast. We then had a long walk over the
mountain, by a tolerable path, which reached an elevation of about fifteen
hundred feet above the sea. Here I noticed one of the smallest and most elegant