Matapui

MATAPUI 

An Account of a Gold Prospecting Expedition into the Interior of New Guinea: July 1929 to February 1930

Ekkehard Beinssen

Translated by Silke Beinssen-Hesse

PART I

It is late July. A leaden heat, saturated with moisture, broods over Salamaua, the harbor of the gold fields of New Guinea.

I am waiting on the verandah of the only guesthouse built, like all the houses and storage sheds of the little white settlement, onto a coral reef perhaps a hundred meters in width that connects the mainland with a steep island. I am waiting for my two future comrades.

Lump, my large not quite pure Irish wolfhound, is lying at my feet with his tongue hanging out, pumping air. With the whites of his eyes showing he is squinting obliquely at me, as though he considered me responsible for the weather. “It was more pleasant up in the mountains wasn’t it Lump?”

His squint turns into a broad grin and he wags his stumpy tail though his good manners don’t go as far as pulling his tongue in.

“Cheer up, Lump; in a few days we will be going up into the interior again. There you can hunt wild pigs, cassowaries and kangaroos, guard the camp and take a bath in the cold mountain water.”

In response he blinks his eyes and once again wags his bit of a tail as though he were saying:

“I can’t quite make out what you are saying but it’s obvious that you are happy; so I’ll consider it my duty to show a bit of pleasure too.”

“Yes, this time I won’t have to depend solely on your company and that of a few natives,” and I get out the telegram and read it once again:

“Arriving with geologist by schooner Namanulla. Will employ you and your twenty-five boys for German Syndicate Rabaul for purpose of expedition. Regards Soltwedel.”

The ship is due today and I spend the time of the wait mentally recapitulating my activities throughout the last two years in New Guinea.

First there were months of sailing various routes along the coast. On a little schooner we transported copra from the plantations to the depot in Rabaul.

White breakers foaming over the coral reefs and playing along the shores of the islands; dark green jungle often stretching right down to the ocean; the fight for life and boat in the storms of the south-east and north-west monsoons; then again nights floating along on a calm sea in chaste moon-lit silence; times when you developed an intimacy with the sea; times of forgetting and dreaming without a wish in the world.

We earn money, buy land, recruit workers and begin our own plantation. I work on the land with a few black men. They call me Master. I am their master, must fill this role and force myself to rule. They are like children, full of pranks with a natural playfulness and usually also a good deal of naivety that wins you over. In this way I spend months alone with them in the ocean-lapped jungle while my partner continues carrying freight and trading with the schooner. All our income goes into the young plantation.

Then suddenly one dark night our sailing boat runs onto a reef and breaks up. Other disappointments follow in short succession. We have to give up our plantation. But there are new ways ahead; each of us is now on his own.

I take work loading copra onto ocean-going ships. Not what you would choose to do but there is no choice. Further casual jobs: exhausting work that one is not accustomed to in the steamy tropical heat.

Kanakas dripping with sweat; monotonous chants; French, Australian, British and American sailors and mechanics; hard-drinking captains with their rowdy humor; gold diggers, planters, traders and recruiters; wild nights of drinking – : The frenzy of the South Seas.

But this state of unthinking surrender to the moment could only be temporary. The search for goals would keep my eyes and senses alert.

Thus it was that one day I met Helmuth Baum, known simply as Boom by white and black alike; Boom, the embodiment of a New Guinea bushman, like a cassowary here one day and there the next; always walking barefoot and with light baggage; often eating only sweet potatoes and bananas for weeks; but always with his toothbrush, soap and razor in his haversack for twice daily use.

He had just come back from one of his long expeditions into the interior of the mainland. His experiences fascinate me and his reports of discovering gold prompt me to make new plans. As he talks, night after night, about the possibilities and probabilities of raising treasures just waiting to be found the prospect of freedom and independence delivers me into the grip of gold-fever, a malady against which Boom himself remained immune.

I can now understand the old Australian prospector who had fossicked for the better part of his life and still found nothing much. Responding to my question why he had, at his age, not given up when he had seen so little success, he answered: “To tell those who want to boss me to go to hell!”

But Boom just smiles; he knows of no master over him and fears none. And so my fever too cools down; in its place comes the old desire to wander into strange unexplored regions, experience adventures that test your courage and strength and to give way to that eternal, primeval curiosity about what might lie beyond the mountains.

But though kept at bay, there is still always the thought in the back of one’s head: ”Just think what I could do with all that wealth!”

It was then that Boom, in his unassuming comradeship, provided me with the means I still lacked to go into the Herzog Mountains for three months and learn the trade of gold-panning and prospecting; three months that rendered me penniless but gave me experiences that were worth ten times more than what I had lost; three months of glimpsing the majesty of the untouched mountain world with its endless vistas and listening to the sounds of the silence in the jungle at its foot. Here was a magnificent landscape with a small white speck moving through it: but the speck was a human being with an emotional world of similar proportions.

New Guinea now held me in its thrall completely. I became obsessed with the idea of coming closer to the heart of this land, of penetrating into it and understanding it, no matter whether this would make me rich or send me home a pauper, or maybe even destroy me.

But to turn this idea into reality you first had to acquire the means to accomplish it.

Fate was in my favor. I could recruit twenty-five black workers and enter into a contract offered to me by a gold company in Salamaua. We were to build a road along which goods could be transported through the swamps to the new airport, designed as a link with the gold-fields of Edie Creek. - Fever-swamps! – But what did it matter? Behind them on the slopes of the high mountains there were the forests and the unknown. –

In this way many weeks of hard unhealthy work went by. Then, eight days ago, Soltwedel’s offer reached me and I grasped it with both hands. Here at last I was being given the opportunity to give shape to my dreams.

Beak, my boss-boy, is just coming along the veranda. “Master, sail he come now.”

He points out to sea where a small two-masted schooner can be seen entering the bay. It is the Namanulla and I walk over to the jetty to meet my two mates.

The first to come up to me is my countryman Soltwedel, a tall man dressed in khaki. He has a typically German face with a high forehead, brown deeply shaded eyes and a strong straight nose. We greet each other cordially for we know each other from Rabaul; he then introduces me to the geologist of the expedition, Mr. Zakharov.

A Russian by birth and extraction, Zakharov with his thick-set sturdy figure, his broad face with the deep-set eyes, the high cheek-bones and strong jaws is the epitome of the Slavic type. He gives me a firm hand-shake and, with his square forehead in broad furrows, he says:

“We are destined to share a great many experiences. I hope we will become good comrades out there.”

“I am sure we will,” I say with sincere conviction returning his hand-shake. “Have you seen anything of New Guinea yet?”

“I only arrived from Australia a month ago. But Mr. Soltwedel has told me a great deal about it on the trip over.”

“That surprises me,” I joke, “ he has spent twenty years here but I always have to squeeze him like a lemon to hear about his experiences. People who have been in the bush for a while become taciturn.”

Soltwedel laughs and says:

“Eating and drinking are sometimes more important than talking. Let’s go and eat before hunger and thirst get the better of us.”

And he is right for in this hot climate the latter at least is always close to being unquenchable.

During dinner Soltwedel gives me a run-down of our plans and tasks. We are to do our prospecting in precisely defined areas; in the first place it will be for gold but also any other mineral resources that can be exploited. Our route will initially take us to the Odibanda River to search for the origin of the alluvial gold found there in such great quantities; then the entire district of the Wattut River has to be explored, from there to the source. Later we are to go into the region of Mount Lawson to look for the origin of the alluvial gold found in the Lakekamu gold fields in Papua. So far the geology of the latter two areas has been barely investigated; in that respect we will be working in completely virginal land. We have a huge task ahead of us. Soltwedel estimates that the entire project will take at least a year.

Towards the end of the meal an Australian, a good friend of the expatriate Germans, comes and sits at our table. Jack would just love to know where we are going. All the others sitting in the dining room here would also like to know. But such secrets have to be more closely guarded than in any other business. There is always the danger that someone could get there ahead of you and nothing is more important than being the first on the spot to stake a claim when new gold is found.

Eventually Jack can no longer contain himself.

“I’ll put ten pounds in cash on the table if you tell me where you are going.”

“Very well, put down the ten pounds, my boy and I’ll let you in on the secret”, Soltwedel promises.

Jack fumbles around and takes the notes out of his pocket. Everybody is looking at Soltwedel and Zakharov whispers to him:

“For God’s sake, what are you doing?”

“Do you know where we are going, Jack? – We are going bush!”

Soltwedel enjoys the raucous laughter of the onlookers and pushes Jack’s ten pounds back over to him. But Jack doesn’t want to look mean and orders champagne.

“Even though I am none the wiser, I wish you good luck!”

He is a good sport and as a typical Australian he wants you to acknowledge that.

Still laughing, we all move out onto the veranda and while Zakharov with his stocky portliness walks up and down to further his digestion I sign my contract with Soltwedel.  I am to be in charge of transporting the provisions and looking after the camp and the porters while Zakharov and Soltwedel will busy themselves, in the main, with the geological work.

Meanwhile Zakharov has discovered a Russian balalaika piece beneath a pile of jazz records and this is now played over and over till we eventually conclude the evening in the best of moods, intoxicated with still more alcohol, and with music, and with the excitement of the experiences ahead of us.

Now the important preliminary tasks needed to be done. We had to divide the contents of thirty boxes into approximately a hundred porter’s loads in such a manner that half of them could be used for the first part of the expedition and the other half for the second. The latter would have to be transported to the airfield at Wau which services the gold-fields of Edie Creek. For it is from there that we want to set out on the second leg of our expedition, the trek to the Piaru River and Mount Lawson.

Twenty-five of the loads for the first half of the trip will be carried by our boys and the rest will be flown to a landing strip on the Wattut River where we intend to set up base for the first stage of our expedition.

No load is allowed to exceed the maximum weight of fifty pounds and they must all be sewn up into sacks and mats to insulate them from rain and moisture. Additionally, the packs have to be numbered and a list of the contents has to be made.

This work is carried out in Mack’s shed. Mack is the agent for many people in the bush and on the gold-fields, and everything they don’t need there is left behind in his store.

Here I  put up my stretcher between boxes, shovels, picks, pith-helmets, sacks of rice, and our own stuff and spend the nights in the friendly company of rats, mice, Lump, and a few cats while outside the heavy tropical rain pelts onto the tin roof almost without intermission.

After three days the work of packing has been done and everything is ready for our start.

At last a clear sunny autumn day rises up. It is Sunday. In the dawn our small motor-yacht bobs gently on the ruffled waters of the harbor of Salamaua. Not a soul can be seen in the little settlement. Everybody is still sleeping off their hangovers from Saturday night.

On the board-walk through the swamp twenty-five boys carry twenty-five packs that are ready for the trek down to the beach. They wade through the water to the pinnace and stow away their loads and themselves.

We three white men and my dog are carried on board on the shoulders of sturdy Kanakas.

Mack, our friend and agent, is on the beach receiving final instructions and waving good luck.

In the belly of the boat four Kanakas are messing about with a blow-lamp, a crank, an accelerator and whatever else is part of that motor which is held together with nails and wire. Suddenly there is an ear-shattering roar and a smile spreads across the pock-marked face of the black captain. The engine has started and slowly our yacht rattles towards the open sea.

At the portholes the porters crouch together fearfully. They are mountain Kanakas who can’t swim and are afraid of the sea and the devil-devil of the engine. Before the white man came to their mountains only a very few courageous men had seen the big water. They would risk their lives to fill a few bamboo shafts with salt water; even today the need for salt is great in the mountains.

We three white men lie on the roof of the cabin. Not much is said, except every now and then an explanation of the area for our geologist. We are traversing the Huon Gulf and our destination is the little village of Busama, the point of departure for the long walk

ahead.

Each one of us is busy with thoughts of the future. – How will it work out, what will we find high up in the rain forests and on the grassy steppes behind the mighty mountain ranges which frame the gulf? What experiences will we have? – As yet there are no worries to depress us, just expectancy testing our patience. – But let’s relax and enjoy the moment. Today is a special day too, our first day and a perfect one at that.

The sea ahead of us is blue and almost motionless, a mirror for the similarly peaceful and cloudless sky. Out on the horizon you can see the narrow trail of smoke left by the mail steamer bringing our mail; in our impatience we have not waited for it.

On our left now, on a mountain that drops down steeply to the sea, Malolo becomes visible, reputed to be the most beautiful mission station in New Guinea. If we run our eye along the coconut palm fringed beach we can see a cape ahead of us. Behind it lies Busama and in front of it the waves break white on the reef.

Everyone is dreaming and dozing. The dog is asleep and even the black helmsman is asleep, leaning back onto the rudder. The soporific dreaminess of the South Seas has us all in its thrall.

All at once the captain wakes up, sees that we are heading directly towards the reef, calls out “port”, and goes back to sleep after making sure that the helmsman has turned the rudder. But we are still heading towards the reef. Then somebody calls “starboard”, the rudder is pulled around hard but the course does not change.

Suddenly all the sleepers and dreamers are woken by the cry: “Steer he go finish!” The rudder has been lost. And there we can see the board drifting in the water way behind us.

To compensate for the loss of strap and rudder, rags are wrapped around an iron crowbar and in this way a temporary rudder is made. After lengthy maneuvering with this bar we eventually pick up our rudder board again and around eleven in the morning, in scorching sun, we run the nose of our boat onto the beach at Busama. Surrounded by crowds of natives the white, the black, and the non-human freight, including the dog, is soon unloaded.

From Busama the beach widens towards the mouth of the Buang River, the start of the track into the Herzog Mountains. We could have taken the yacht there; but since it has no harbor and the freight would have to be carried onto land through the bay where the surf is quite high, we have chosen to land in more sheltered Busama. Because Buang is our goal for the day we let our porters shoulder their packs without delay and set off again around midday.

Right behind the beach the jungle rises up, threatening and impenetrable with its mangrove and sago swamps. To avoid the tiring soft sand we all paddle bare-foot through the edge of the break where the ground is hard. Lump, our expedition dog and great hunter, is enjoying his freedom, racing up and down the long line of porters and amusing himself and us by catching crabs.

The sky and the sea are a dark blue, the sand a blinding white and the wall of the jungle a deep green. The heat is tremendous but we repeatedly cool off in the tepid sea water.

Under favorable conditions this hike from Busama to Buang takes three and a half hours. But we take twice as long because the streams we have to cross are swollen with heavy rain. We have to wade through them and each time a ford has to be found. At the first river this took more than an hour. The threat of crocodiles made the crossing more difficult and only after throwing in handfuls of dynamite and patrolling with guns at the ready could we risk it. Because the water with its strong current sometimes reached up to our necks, every boy and every load had to be taken over separately: And all this three times. One of the rivers was so deep that we could only get across where the current and the surf of the ocean met and formed a kind of sandbank.

It was dark by the time the last porters with their loads had crossed the third river, and we arrived in the camp at Buang thoroughly exhausted. Two huts made from bush materials saved us the effort of putting up tents.

But because of the swamps behind us, there were mosquitoes here in such enormous swarms that we could only ward them off by performing veritable St Vitus’ dances. As we were all quite tired, we decided to go to bed straight after dinner.

But when Zakharov unpacked his swag the normally disciplined lips suddenly uttered a mighty curse.

In Soltwedel and me the satisfaction that Zakharov, who was normally so correct and un-South-Sea-like, could swear for all it was worth was greater than the curiosity as to what could have caused such language. We look at each other and start laughing. Zakharov, however, descends upon his bed-roll once again, rummages around among blankets, shirts, trousers and socks and eventually turns to us with an expression of helpless dismay:

“It is actually true! I have left my mosquito-net behind. What will I do now?”

“There is nothing much you can do but put your head under the blankets like a snail,” Soltwedel reckons in his rough and hearty manner

“What, in that heat!” Zakharov groans, “I’ll go crazy.”

Soltwedel, who is hardier, comforts him:

“Only for one night. Tomorrow there will be far fewer mosquitoes and the day after, in the mountains, none.”

“Small consolation”, I say. “We can’t afford to experiment with a crazy geologist. By the way, I happen to know how you can sleep here without a net. So take mine.”

Zakharov resolutely refuses but Zavil is already following my instructions and attaching the net above his bed. After I have assured him again that my method is mosquito-proof, he eventually agrees.

That method consists of picking up my blankets and walking down to the beach. The little pests can’t stand the salty night breeze.

I bed down close to the breaking surf. With the cool soft sand to rest on, the starry sky like a roof above me and lulled to sleep by the boom of the sea, I had a peaceful night until, in the morning, a breaking wave woke me with a cold shower.

Back in the heat I find Soltwedel and his companion engaged in a blood feud. In spite of all precautions a few of the mosquitoes had found their way into the nets; now the men were taking revenge for an unsettled and sleepless night by slapping wildly all around them. My involuntary bath was undoubtedly more pleasant than the bites my two comrades had on their faces and hands.

Today’s hike is short. Our destination is the confluence of the two upper arms of the Buang River at the foot of the first great rise. Before breakfast, at sunrise, the boys pack up their loads and on narrow swampy paths we enter the jungle. Zakharov and Soltwedel go on ahead to inspect and examine the district geologically.

When all the boys have finally left the camp-site I cast a last nostalgic gaze at my beloved Pacific before I follow them into the twilight of the forest.

Out there the smell was of ocean, salt, sand and fish. But no sooner have you taken the first steps here and you are overcome by a suffocating smell of decay, black soil, swamp, and dying trees and leaves. Then there is the extraordinary narcotic perfume of exotic orchids and flowers of the jungle, abruptly spoilt by the stench of carrion from out the thicket. And the same range of impressions for the ear, now muffled, now shrill, and just as confusing: the manifold calls and noises of birds and insects.

It all reminds me of oriental bazaars with their vaulted passages and halls, their strong scents and strange cries; and here as there it is cool compared to the world outside.

When I first set foot in this kingdom of the jungle I was erect and proud as one might walk in the world of the Viking. A moment later a branch brushed my hat from my head as though to say:

“Take off your hat in the sanctuary. Don’t be too brash. Here you will have to learn humility and patience.”

And without doubt the jungle, not withstanding its overpowering beauty, provides hard lessons in self-discipline; all who have experienced it will be aware of that. Will it test our patience too? An unpleasant thought in the midst of all this harmony!

Initially the path leads far into the plain on the lower course of the Buang.

You cannot hear your own steps for the ground is soft and often thickly covered with moss. Every now and again our covered walkway heads into the water and then we wade upwards through the river, only to dip back into the darkness of the forest again.

Once we have arrived at our camping spot we erect the tents; then water is boiled, and after that we take a bath in the clear mountain stream. In the meantime Zakharov is examining the river bed for gold.

Gold occurs either as alluvial gold as which it is found mainly in the river sand and in accumulated deposits on old river courses, or it is still locked away in the rock.

To test a water-course for its alluvial gold content you fill a dish that has been specifically designed for that purpose with a specimen of soil taken from as deep down in the river course as possible. Then you wash the contents by swinging the dish in circles under the water in a particular manner. As you do this, the lighter sand washes out of the dish and the gold sinks down due to its greater specific weight and stays in the groove where it becomes visible as dust, sand or larger grains. Depending on how much gold is found in a particular sample you can estimate whether the area is worth mining or not.

If in rock, gold is most commonly found in quartz and slate, more rarely in granite. It can either occur on its own or in a chemical combination with other metals. In its first manifestation it can often be discerned with a magnifying glass; you then see small particles of gold sprinkled through the rock. The second form can only be detected by means of chemical analysis.

In much the same way you can detect the presence of other minerals and, since specific metals nearly always occur in connection with specific rocks, you can tell by the rocks what metals might be present.

But due to the volcanic nature of New Guinea and the unusually high rainfall the whole country is so torn, so jumbled up and washed out, that it is extraordinarily difficult for a geologist to come to definite and reliable conclusions.

After a restless and rainy night - Zakharov put up an umbrella to catch the drips from the tent – everyone is woken early as today’s march is difficult and long. We will have to climb almost 6000 feet up from the plain.

We leave the foaming white river and enter a giant forest with thick undergrowth. The little path winds upward in constant serpentines and after an hour we arrive at the village of Lega.

This settlement has only eight to ten huts and very few gardens and is surrounded by densely planted, unfortunately not yet fully grown bananas. Lega has only existed for a few years and is a creation of the Wesley Mission; they brought a few families down from the Herzog Mountains and intended the settlement as an intermediate stop on the long way from the sea to the villages of the mountains. Lega is built on the slope of the ridge which we will now climb steadily till we reach the pass which forms the entrance to the mighty valley of the Snake River.

In Lega we stop for the duration of a cigarette, while we cast our eyes through the silhouettes of the bananas back over the valley of the Buang River and out across the distant ocean. Then we say farewell and continue our ascent through the forest, for hours on end. Whenever you think you can see the last rise, you discover, after laborious climbing, that it isn’t even the second last one.

All of a sudden we hear a bird; its song descends the chromatic scale in a wonderfully pure restrained rhythm. Beak, our boss boy, turns to me and, pointing into the forest with a startled gesture, cries out:

“Matapui! – Matapui sing! – Matapui bring death!”

Smiling at his superstitions I try to reassure him:

“Never fear, my boy, Matapui has no power where the white man rules.”

But Beak remains serious and simply replies:

“No Master, Matapui he savvy.”

His tribe believes Matapui to be the bird of death; when it sings one of those who hear it must die.

I say nothing more, just give him a friendly pat on the back. You can’t dispel the superstitions of the natives with rational arguments.

After a lengthy and difficult climb on slippery, clayey soil we reach a grass covered rise. From here you can look down upon the world like a bird. Everything is so clear, so pure, and so full of distant yearning and solitude that I am beginning to have a better understanding of the song of Matapui, why its song goes down the scale not up. Its home is high in the mountains; how could it sing any other way.

As we listen thoughtfully to the far-off notes ringing in the evening twilight, melancholy comes over our hearts too.

Now the night is no longer far off and since we have arrived at the source of one of the branches of the Buang and my companions are still a long way back I call a stop, have the tents erected and cook a particularly nourishing and plentiful meal; for our fare today consisted of only chocolate and mountain water.

Tired, like overworked draught animals, our boys arrive in the camp one by one. The other two men, who are not back in training, have also found it heavy going, particularly Zakharov who is too exhausted to be hungry.

After dinner the three of us sit by the fire on sacks of rice. I light a cigarette and Zakharov goes back into the tent to get a cigar for himself.

Suddenly we hear violent shouting. Slap, slap, a scream and Varandin, one of our house-boys, is catapulted out of the tent. Another scream and Ghabergh is expelled in a similar fashion. Both come towards me with big surprised eyes, looking for protection. Zakharov returns to the fire:

“What happened,” I ask, “were the boys going to steal anything?”

“No, and I want to use this opportunity to request something, on principle. – I noticed you smiling when I rinsed my own plate with boiling water after dinner. You have to understand; it is a physical impossibility for me to eat from utensils that have been touched by black fingers.”

“But Zakharov,” I say, “I make a point of always seeing to it that the cooks and house-boys wash their hands before they prepare a meal.”

“Black is black,” says Zakharov. “I admit that I am sensitive but I can’t suppress my revulsion if I come into any personal contact with black people. They disgust me, they make me quite sick.”

Soltwedel and I catch each other’s eye. What’s ahead of us here? It is virtually impossible to be fussy in the bush.

Meanwhile Zakharov has had water brought and is washing his hands after his rough contact with Varandin and Ghabergh. They for their part are still standing behind me waiting for an explanation from me or for further punishment.

Carefully drying his hands Zakharov calls them over: “Show me your hands.”

They both stretch them out, glad to be able to show that they have not stolen anything and excitedly reaffirming this. But with an expression full of revulsion, Zakharov points between their fingers:

“They have scabies and dare to touch my bed. That’s intolerable!”

And he spits into the fire in disgust.

“You will have to get used to it,” Soltwedel comments dryly. “All Kanakas have scabies, ringworm or psoriasis. Admittedly it’s not nice but it can’t be avoided. You can do quite a bit to keep such maladies under control and that is being done; but as long as our porters have contact with free natives, and that can not be avoided, you can’t eradicate them.”

Zakharov dismisses this angrily.

“I’ll never be able to get used to it.”

“Then at least let me give you Dane for your personal attendance,” I try to appease him. “His skin is clean and he is eager to learn. I will try to make allowances for your idiosyncrasies to the extent that this is possible in the bush. – But please also take note of the following: No man can serve two masters, particularly not if he is a native. In the eyes of our boys I am their master. Though I have made it clear to them all that they must obey you and Soltwedel just like me, the right to punish must remain my preserve. In the case at hand I would not have imposed punishment and you had no right to do it.”

“That means that we have very different views,” my companion replies. “It proves that you are far too considerate to the Kanakas.”

“Not at all, just fair. You have to allow them to be themselves and give them a measure of freedom but be very firm when it comes to them doing what is required of them. In this case there was no bad intention and therefore no reason for punishment.”

Zakharov just shakes his head. For him the blacks are nothing but slaves. He is too much of an aesthete to muster up enough sympathy for them to give them equal rights as humans.

With clean hands now, the two scabies ridden boys out of sight, Zakharov spits the last remnants of his disgust into the fire and tries to smooth things over:

“But that shouldn’t get in the way of our white comradeship.”

Soon we are all three lying peacefully beside each other under the tarpaulin, sleeping the sleep of the pleasantly weary.

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Next day the normally lethargic boys can not be stopped. The dismantling of the tents is started over our heads, our beds are pulled warm from under our backs and the cook-boy doesn’t even give us a chance for a second cup of tea. In double quick time everyone has his pack on his back and off they are. I just manage to stop the porter with the supply box so that we at least have something to nibble on the way.

Zakharov looks at me perplexed: “What’s up? Why of a sudden all this energy?”

I explain the mystery to him. Our destination today is Mapos, the mountain village that is home to our boys. Up there dads and mums and pretty if not entirely hygienic Marys are waiting. But more than anything else, it is probably their stomachs that are driving them; they are sure to be sick of the constant rice. Up there, there will be taros, sweet potatoes, yams, bananas and sugar cane again.

The three of us stomp along in the rear on the almost bottomless mountain path, often sinking a foot deep into the sticky clay. It is raining in heavy showers. The water is running down our necks and down our backs. We grumble and curse, each one in his own fashion, in German, Russian or Australian; letting off steam in this all too human predicament eventually allows us to laugh together.

The stretch just before the top of the pass is a real surprise; it is like an artificial botanical garden, only grander than any earthly creator could ever have designed it. If only the tangled paths were easier to navigate! Zakharov is of the opinion that if he were transplanted to Berlin with this patch of the earth he could give up looking for gold and do nothing but sit at the cash register and collect entrance fees. 

Up at the height of the pass the winds are almost chilly for a tropical country. Our ears, unaccustomed to the altitude, give way to pressure from within and open with a pop, allowing a new wider realm of sounds to become accessible.

Through a clearing in the forest we can suddenly see spread out in front of us the gigantic, deeply furrowed valley of the Snake River with its bare grass-covered mountain slopes.

That is where years ago my friend Baum stood as the first white man and peered into this land which nobody had entered before him. He saw the smoke from countless villages rising, saw gardens that lay like vineyards on the steep slopes and huts sticking to the ridges like birds’ nests: A densely populated valley. The porters accompanying him were terrified and ran off. Only one of them stayed with him. What was he to do? Turn back and end up having done the long trek to no avail? – Baum took the risk and won. He succeeded in entering into friendly relations with the natives, recruited a group of them for work and took them to the coast.  After two years they came back and told their people of the wonders and the power of the white man. They spread out their tempting treasures: knives, axes and iron tools of every kind, loincloths, jew’s-harps, belts, glass beads, tin spoons and plates, mouth organs, red paint and perfume etc. Since that time the white man has a good name in that area, along with his trade goods of course.

The age-old hostilities between the different villages and tribes which had long been isolated from each other and were degenerating through incest were also bridged by the white man, admittedly for commercial and political reasons. Now the whole valley is like a single country. But the long accustomed isolation has meant that the originally unified languages have grown apart to such an extent that villages hardly an hour apart from each other can no longer communicate; even today many different dialects are spoken here.

After Baum, Soltwedel was one of the first whites to enter this valley and many a night did he regale us with stories of those early times.

After we have rested and eaten – the rain having stopped, the sun was now shining warm over the landscape again – we dive into the darkness of the forests once more and walk down into the valley.

Here we find one of our porters sitting stoically by the wayside in a pool of blood. He had slipped and almost totally severed the sinew of one of his heels with an axe. We bandage him up carefully and initially leave him behind with one of the boys. After a long steep descent we then arrive in the village of Bulandim where we employ porters so that the injured man and his load can be carried to Mapos.

From Bulandim the path runs through dense grass, up and down for hours, till we arrive in Mapos where we are given a huge welcome. This was, of course, my base earlier on when I recruited my boys; their return is celebrated into the early hours of the morning.

We intend to stay in Mapos for at least a week to give our geologist the chance to check out my discoveries from that time. In response to the invitation of the black missionary we set up camp in his beautiful large house.

                                            ---------------------------------------

We had hardly arrived when the rain started; it poured for nearly a fortnight. It was also uncomfortably chilly with constant damp winds, fog and mud. Mapos, my beloved, sunny, dreamy Mapos, which I had praised so highly in Salamaua, was displaying its most unpleasant side. We felt as though we were locked up and could neither go out nor onward.

Once when the weather cleared for a moment I went down with Zakharov to where the Gangwae flows into the Snake. There we found marble, millions of tons of marble, perhaps better than that which Michelangelo procured from Karara. Only that here the insoluble transport problems prevent it from ever benefitting mankind.

We returned drenched and since the cold had brought up the topic of mountaineering and the Russian winter, I dreamed that night of a fantastic white castle on the top of Gauri Sankar; I wasn’t sure whether it had been constructed of blocks of ice or of Mapos marble. The light shone through the walls with a bluish tinge and from within came a choir of a thousand voices that sang strangely sad and exotic melodies. I was sure that permanent world-wide peace or the birth of Nietzsche’s superman was being celebrated here and expected to hear Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony with its “joy” and “be embraced, you millions” any moment when I awoke. But the singing continued. It came from some distance away, blowing in with the morning mist. It took me a while to realize that I was actually awake and no longer dreaming. These were the morning devotions of the perhaps a hundred strong mission school conducted in a church built of grass and bamboo down in the valley: pious words in a heathen language with heathen tunes.

The Wesleyan mission has allowed the natives to keep their own ancient melodies and translated their hymns into the language of the Kanakas, in contrast to the conservative Catholic Church which, on the whole, teaches its converts the same Latin hymns that have been sung in Rome for a thousand years.

The melodies born of the dreams of the jungle are strange and melancholy, of a moving simplicity and sweetness, and they are sung with wonderful purity by the strong and unaffected voices of these children of nature.

We had a free concert like that every morning and evening for the duration of our stay in Mapos. I knew all the tunes off by heart from my earlier sojourn and often caught myself humming them to myself as I walked along.

Rain, nothing but rain! We spend days on end sitting on the veranda of the mission house cursing the weather that is holding us up. We buy mountains of produce: kaukaus, yams, taros, bit, sugarcane, shallots, tomatoes, bananas and lemons. We eat a purely vegetarian diet and after the tinned food of Salamaua and Rabaul we gorge ourselves on vitamins. And all procured for a few teaspoons of salt, some small kitchen knives, jew’s-harps, beads and matches. There are few places on earth where you can live so cheaply and so well. In addition, there is the occasional wild pigeon that the newly trained shoot-boy Zavil proudly brings back. Our boys, who are on leave, only put in an appearance to collect their meals and are then not seen again for the rest of the day.

One evening we get talking about tin and as I am sure I have come across some, I set out next morning in spite of the pouring rain to find the old work-site beside my waterfall. I say “my”, for it is the most beautiful one I have ever seen and it is quite likely that no white man has discovered it before me. So off I go, using my rubber-soled tennis-shoes and my walking stick as ski equipment, pretending that the slippery, dirty clay is snow.

Once the floor of the valley has been reached you have to go up the steep opposite side in herring-bone step. Behind me are three wet, naked, shivering Kanakas.

We leave the grassy slopes and now make our way up through dense rain-forest into the realm of mosses and leaches. Three times we have to wade up to our hips in water crossing the Gangwae; then we just stay in the water, walking upwards through the river bed.

Two of the boys are carrying bags and one a hammer. A piece of every reef is broken off and put in the bag. The boys think the master is completely crazy. There are so many stones in Mapos and he comes all this way in the pouring rain, fills the sack with stones and lets us carry them back. But with their characteristic fatalism they accept it all saying:

“Maski. Fashion belong white man.” (What does it matter. That’s what white men do.)

My waterfall can already be heard from afar; in close proximity you are almost blown off your feet by the air pressure and the force of the fine spray of water. It is cold and wet here, deafeningly loud and everything is covered with dripping moss and orchids.    

A few rock samples are quickly knocked from the walls and then we leave this eerie, chilly spectacle behind us. We light a fire at my former campsite, open a tin of meat, cook some rice and after half an hour we make our way home without resting on the way. Stiff and wet to the bone I arrive at the mission house where Zakharov is waiting for me with his magnifying glass at the ready and Soltwedel with a bottle of brandy.

While I change into dry clothes Zakharov sits silently next to the heap of stones. In the last light of day he has discovered enough to justify a closer inspection of the area.

But at the moment we have a different project and will have to come back to this later.

In the evening we sit together for quite some time and chat. I tell them about the strange paintings that can be seen in a kind of open dripstone cave on the way to the upper Gangwae.

These caves are used as burial sites by the Kanakas. Their custom is like ours: they bury their dead but after a time, when they have decomposed, they are exhumed and the sculls and bones are heaped up in these caves. Even today there are hundreds if not thousands of sculls you can see piled up, a veritable anthropological treasure trove.

The sculls of the departed from the tribe currently living in Mapos lie strictly separate from the pile of the “big feller men belong before”. And these ancestors, about whom I was unable to ascertain details, will presumably also have created the paintings.

There must have been a Polynesian people once living here to whose art and symbolism the paintings refer. Even today you can see people noticeably Polynesian in looks among the Kanakas of the Snake River who are generally of Melanesian race with the shape of their face, their straight lanky hair and light skin color as indicators.

One of the most beautiful of the paintings, executed in red ochre on white limestone, represents a complete symbolic sun sequence in about twenty individual images. The sun is portrayed in the shape of a stylized human being with an enormous head and a crown of light beams. The figures rise up on the left and the higher the sun, the larger its crown of light. In the middle, up at the zenith, it is largest; then the images descend again to the right with the crown of light becoming ever smaller. Under all this a red line has been drawn, probably representing the horizon, beneath that an image of the sun standing on its head and another with the sun in a prostate position as it is just being devoured by the open mouth of a dog-like creature.

What draws attention is the accuracy of the observation that shows the sun just above the horizon, at sunrise and sunset, to be almost as large as the image of the sun in its zenith. It is also worth noting that the myth of the sun being devoured by a beast is spread all through the South Seas as well as being found in the symbolism of American Indian tribes; in spite of their extreme remoteness it has reached these shores too.

Just as we are about to go to bed that night a dripping wet runner arrives with a letter on his stick: Bad news. Our agent writes from Salamaua that because the airline is booked out it is not in a position to transport our provisions to the airstrip at the Wattut. That means we will be in trouble if we can’t find an alternative. Most likely there is also an element of intrigue in all this; people who have an interest in such things are bound to have guessed where we are headed. What should we do? – After a lot of discussion it is decided we will let everything be transported to the unfortunately rather distant airstrip of Bulowat.

I am to leave for Lae next morning while my two comrades stay in Mapos and continue prospecting there till I inform them that everything has arrived at Bulowat. And since we will have to fly over Mapos when we transport our stuff, a red cloth is to be thrown from the plane as we pass over as a sign for the others to break camp.

That night I get the two boys who are to accompany me ready for departure. They have to sleep in the mission house for when it comes to punctuality they are not all that dependable. I have chosen Zavil and Rapuwe.

Zavil is small but a good runner and tough. He has a clean, silky skin, a fuzzy head of hair and Mongolian features. He is an excellent marksman with a shot-gun. He also speaks Trepan English fluently. I have long promised him a flight in the “ballus” (plane or bird) and since he has been with me longest of all the boys I am particularly attached to him, as he is to me. With the exception of Beak, the boss-boy, he is the most intelligent of them all.

Rapuwe is of sturdier build than Zavil, also a good runner but otherwise fairly dumb. But he has a good-natured temperament and is willing and reliable. A particular characteristic of his are his huge toes; they are of quite frightening dimensions.

Next morning in the dark we hastily make a cup of tea, warm up yesterday’s food and with the rising dawn we head off: me, Lump and the two chosen ones. We are all four in the best of moods and looking forward to the flight across the mountains to the Bulowat.

At sunrise we have just reached a grass-covered rise. It is a magnificent morning. Songs and melodies come to my mind and I burst into loud, full-throated, though by no means beautiful song. I can do that here for apart from the Kanakas no one can hear me and they have the agreeable habit of accepting the in any case incomprehensible white man as he is. Only Lump looks at me accusingly as if to say: you are chasing away all my game. – But maski, Lump, there is no time for hunting today.

In the valley the morning mists seethe like a wild ocean out of which the peaks of the mountains rise as though they were islands. Above it all is the dome of an azure-blue sky. This is the first fine day in Mapos. You can see right over to the Finisterre Range on the one side and the Kraetke Range on the other. The mission house at Mapos clings like a swallow’s nest to the steep ridge. On the grass stalks the dew and rain of the night have left a thousand drops that break the light into iridescent blue and green hues.

From Bulandim nearby and from the other more distant villages blue smoke rises up vertically and mingles with the blue of the sky and the distance. A fresh morning wind carries the sweetish smell characteristic of all native villages.

We leave the grassy slopes and descend into the darkness of the forest. Once more we pass through our botanical garden and then we go down past the village of Lega to the Buang River. Here we take our first rest that afternoon and boil the billy. There is still wood from our earlier encampment.

The river is hugely in spate: a wild, foaming mass. So off with shirt and trousers; we have to find a ford. But no matter where we try, it is everywhere too deep and raging. We cannot attempt to swim across because of the rocks and boulders. It takes more than three hours before we have managed to slash a path through the thick scrub of the banks and to reach a place where the river divides into three branches and becomes shallower. By the time we finally erect a make-shift shelter from palm fronds and branches night has set in.

In the early morning all the trees are heavy with water. Whatever you touch responds with a shower. With wild screams the white cockatoos fly off to warn everybody of approaching danger. It is as though you were walking through an aviary in the zoo, the noise is so constant and varied. You can’t find a tree here without a bird sitting in it; no land on earth sports so many species. As we walk into the valley Zavil shoots a number of rhinoceros hornbills and pigeons. These two species, along with the cassowary and the emu, provide the most important source of fresh meat for the white man. Mammals here are thinly spread and consist mainly of wild pigs, small kangaroos and a few species of small arboreal bears and marsupials. Through the dividing rampart of the trees we can now hear the rising and falling roar of the surf. We stride out vigorously and are soon standing on the white sand of the ocean once more. After the claustrophobia of the forest, the eye blissfully perceives the dreamy distance spread out before it.

We turn off towards the north, swim through the river and now walk along the shady beach at a more relaxed pace. Half to the right, in the blue haze of a cloudless day, the peninsula of Lae, our destination for today, lies in the far distance.

After a walk of four hours we come to the village of Labu situated at the mouth of the Markham River. Here we find the Markham watch, two Kanakas employed by the government as ferrymen who maintain the often dangerous traffic across the river with their canoe.

The mouth of the Markham is a wild chaos: swamps, sandbanks, little islands, huge tree-trunks and eddies created by the muddy yellow masses of water that pour into the ocean at more than twelve miles per hour and, where surf and stream meet, create a veritable Charybdis.

Our two boatmen punt the canoe along the as yet shallow bank with long poles. Then they jump out and, in the lee of an island, wading through the water up to their hips, they laboriously push the craft half a kilometer upstream. Once there they jump on and paddling madly and carried off course by the current at a tremendous rate they reach the cover of the next island. In this manner they gradually work their way over to the other bank.

Swarms of white herons cross with measured flight. One of them flies over us so low that you could almost grab him by the legs. These creatures have no fear of humans. Do they know that they are protected? Zavil desperately wants to shoot but I forbid him to kill such a beautiful bird for the sake of a few tail feathers.

At last, arrived on the other side, our ferrymen set us down in a swampy area. At the very first step we sink knee-deep, at the second up to our hips into a black stinking bog. But from this side it is the only access there is to Lae; we have no choice, we have to traverse it.

Nothing offers more resistance than such a bush bog. Every pandanus is full of aerial roots that go right down to the ground and make the tree look as though it had a thousand legs. Every root is covered with thorns. The mangroves too put down wildly tangled roots all around them and they drive up spears, sharp as lances and a foot high, that stick out of the ground. The sago palm has finger-long needles and thus everything forms an impenetrable tangle. Now sinking, now staggering in the mud, in our desperation even grabbing at the thorns for a hold, we fight our way through that slough for more than an hour.

After this purgatory we finally attain the white ocean sand as though it were paradise. With clothes and all I dive into the surf.

In the dusk we then reach the aerodrome of Lae, quite exhausted; just as we arrive two Junkers planes land like white herons. In a bungalow belonging to white friends I then get a bath, a clean bed and a sumptuously laid table. It doesn’t take much to make a man happy.

Disappointments. --- The Bulowat airstrip is too short for Junkers planes. Only the little “moth” can land there. To ferry all our provisions up with her would take eight to ten days. You couldn’t be sure to have it all there in less than four weeks.

In my mind’s eye I see my two comrades in Mapos scrutinizing every plane for four weeks to see whether it might not be dropping a red cloth: the agreed sign.

What to do? Give up the flight which would be so much quicker and more comfortable?  It is a hard decision to make but there is nothing that can be done about it. Legs and backs will have to do the work once again.

Mack’s motor launch is just dropping anchor at Lae. I run to the beach and charter it while the boys have already begun to fetch the load. An hour later everything is stored away.

But first the black “engineer” ties the carburetor to the rest of the engine with the look of an expert and smiles about my concerns.  Our motor starts and makes any further argument irrelevant. It is late by now but if the string holds, we could just manage to land in Buang before nightfall.

Out at sea the swell is high and soon has the little boat in ecstasies. Lump and a few of the blacks, among them a police-boy with a native convict in handcuffs, get seasick. I therefore go up to the roof of the cabin.

The sea is quite yellow and the sky above the Markham valley equally so. The sun is hidden behind clouds. The yellow light seems to shine of its own accord. The effect of this display of colors is enhanced by the deep darkness of the thunderstorm brooding over Salamaua.

Suddenly the black captain no longer wants to go to Buang. He thinks the surf is too high to make a landing possible; apart from that, the pinnace would capsize if the storm caught it at sea. But I won’t let myself be bargained with. I insist we keep course on Buang. Grumpily the helmsman obliges and the motor gives a worried shake of its cylinder head.

But we manage nevertheless, drop anchor beyond the surf and then the boys carry the loads on their heads through the surf and onto the beach. Lump and I are the last to leave, diving overboard.

In the light of a lantern I make myself at home in the grass hut and can just see the yacht lifting anchor and disappearing in the gathering darkness.

Suddenly through wind and rain there are calls. Lump races down to the beach and barks provocatively. We bring a light and a glow answers from out at sea, comes closer and disappears again in the night. We go to bed rather worried while the heavy tropical rain pelts onto the grass roof and soaks us one drop at a time.

In the morning the yacht is lying six miles away at anchor. – I knew it: the string.

After breakfast I send the resourceful Zavil into the villages on the near slopes of the Herzog Mountains to drum up porters. I know all the chiefs and have a good reputation in this area. Apart from that, taxes are due again soon and they need money. So it is not surprising that sixty porters turn up next morning in spite of the heavy rain.

I distribute the loads, pay them off and postpone our departure till next day because of the heavy rain.

In the dusk swarms of flying foxes rise up and land on the breadfruit tree beside our camp. I shoot about a dozen of them in the course of fifteen minutes and every shot is greeted with howls of delight; for in spite of its nauseating stench, this animal when roasted is a special treat for the natives. The creatures are so dumb that they come back to sit in the same spot again and again in spite of the shots and the screaming.

I examine the wings which have a span of almost two meters. The construction is purposeful and at the same time so artful and unnaturally simple that it is easy to understand why Leonardo da Vinci took this species of animal and not the bird as his model for a flying machine. -----

I want to cover the stretch between Buang and Mapos at an accelerated pace in a single day. I have now walked that way so often that it is becoming boring, particularly if you are on our own. The porters are given two days time and are to spend the night in Lega.

I start off before sunrise, accompanied only by Lump, with half a bar of chocolate and a tin of meat in my haversack.

I follow my old system for long marches: Walking steadily and not too quickly but at an even pace and without breaks with only half an hour’s stop around midday. I find you have to focus your thoughts on some topic, for weariness is less the result of your muscles tiring than of boredom of the mind. It is amazing how much one can actually walk in a day.

By five o’clock I have reached Mapos. From a grassy rise I can see the mission house in the distance. All day I have been looking forward to the reunion with my two friends. Now I can see them from afar with their binoculars out watching a plane that is flying south at a height of about four thousand meters. Consequently their surprise is considerable when I come upon them from behind. Great delight when I inform them that the loads will be here tomorrow and that we will be able to move on in a few days.

Zakharov fetches an enormous quantity of mixed vegetables from the fire which I devour ravenously and then we celebrate with a bottle of port.

I have only been gone for six days and still there is a nice feeling of joy and satisfaction to be among my comrades again. It is as though I had come home and I am even more pleased to sense that the other two have similar feelings.

Till midnight we sit around together in the best of spirits. Then each of the two lends me a blanket as my bed is still in transit and after we have created a Bartholomew’s night for the flees with powder and Flix we all go to bed, ripe for sleep.

Although the porters do arrive punctually next day we still have to stay for another four days before we can move on. New porters had to be hired to carry the additional loads to our first base on the Wattut since the previous ones only wanted to go as far as Mapos. We also had to do some repacking.

It is around this time, too, that Naie is recruited, a native Max and Moritz rolled in one, a cheeky little prankster.

Naie is a true Maposian, as tall as Lump when he is sitting on his hind legs and about twelve years old. Naie has a golden laugh, a laugh that is so delightful that Baum and I spent whole evenings having fun with the little rascal when he was with us on an earlier trip.

But Naie is also very independent. For a while he went to the mission school but things got too boring for him there and with the prerogative of the free native he just quit one day and decided to go with Baum to search for gold in the interior. The white master with his tins, bottles and instruments was a great deal more interesting than the things the mission helpers talked about and all that singing. And because Naie is quite clever he became the cook-boy.

But it was only four weeks before things went wrong. – They were a week out of Mapos when one morning a whole tin of lard, two tins of meat and a few other things were found to be missing and at the same time it was very obvious that Naie’s tummy, instead of being as usual the size of a coconut, that day had the dimensions of a regimental drum.

However Naie is not only clever but also careful for he knows the “fashion belong white man” that in cases like this a certain part of the anatomy has to pay for what the mouth has perpetrated. So he decides to quit once more and starts off for home with his entire provisions already stowed away in his stomach.

For six days the little fellow travelled: through hostile and at times even cannibalistic tribal areas, crossed rivers deeper than he was tall and eventually, to the horror of all the inhabitants, arrived back in Mapos hale and sound though with considerably diminished bread basket. Anyone who is familiar with New Guinea can appreciate this achievement.

But in Mapos nobody wanted him and since Naie was hungry he founded a kind of robber band with other orphaned boys, lived in the bush and took what he needed from the gardens; and he needed a lot because his tummy is very elastic.

Now the friend of his “good feller Master Boom” had turned up again. So one morning he appears in front of me on the veranda of the mission house, grubby, dressed with nothing but a rope and smiling with embarrassment.

“Naie come finish. Naie stop bum-bum. Naie cook. Naie no good.” (Naie is here. Naie is going to stop bumming around. Naie will cook. Naie is no good.)

In view of his obvious remorse I accept his offer in spite of the loud protests of the other two, give him a huge piece of soap, and send him down to the river with instructions not to come back before the soap has been used up. He then receives a sky-blue loin-cloth, a spoon, a plate, a jew’s-harp and a little tin saucepan in which he immediately cooks a few stolen sweet potatoes and a frog he caught while he was bathing, all the while happily playing on his jew’s-harp.

So that’s Naie and the relieved chief says that we never have to bring him back.  

Our departure from Mapos takes on the appearance of a triumphal procession. Even before sunrise the mission square is crowded and by seven I have distributed the loads to our twenty-five boys and the sixty hired porters and have paid off the men.

It is the custom to pay for carrier services in advance and there is almost no known case where the porter has not delivered his load to the agreed destination. There may have been occasions when a sack of rice was nibbled at a bit if the hunger was too great but that should not happen to us this time for we have bought a mountain of field produce and have distributed it to the porters. So each man has to carry five days worth of sweet potatoes on top of his load; this has been calculated somewhat stingily for we are hoping to buy more on the way.

Naie is given Zakharov’s haversack and camera with strict instructions to keep five steps behind his master all the time, like a little dog. For the haversack contains the most essential scientific instruments which our geologist will need on the trek to form an impression of the geological characteristics of the areas traversed.

And if you watched Zakharov as he went his way you would be convinced that nothing could escape his sharp, deep-set eyes, be it a major formation or just a small stone or some layering. He read the landscape in terms of millions of years and told the story of the living earth like a witness to its transformations.

But it was not just the past that he read like a horoscope. He could spend whole nights talking about weathering, oxidation, displacement, and eruptions of the subterranean fire and envisaged the changes in the landscape that further millions of years would create with the eyes of the seer.

Soltwedel, in comparison, did not have Zakharov’s scientific training to read the formations geologically but since the discovery of the gold-fields here he has gathered a great deal of practical experience. Whenever Zakharov comments that there might be something here or there, he considers what is realistically possible: would it be worthwhile, suitable for machines or sluice-boxes, for an individual or a company, could one build an airfield near by, how long would the preliminary work take and how many boys and how much capital would be necessary. He always had his mind on what could be extracted and if Zakharov was carried away by some matter that was geologically interesting but of no economic significance, then it was Soltwedel who would redirect his attention to the practicalities.

While I was fascinated by the approach of both men, it is this life in contact with man and nature that is more important to me than anything else.

Consequently, we three complement each other very well and it is no surprise that now, as we are leaving Mapos, Lump and I are the first to set out and my two comrades follow behind. My gaze is directed into the distance whereas Zakharov’s eyes are usually scanning the ground and whatever is in close proximity.

The path leads from the airy heights of Mapos down to the Snake River; in the language of the natives, it has the beautiful name Sagae, with a slight emphasis on the “ae ”.  “Sagae” means fairytale or legend in Mapos. Not far from here there is the Gangwae, meaning song, which runs into the Sagae, so that from then on one could speak of this river as the “river of sung legend”.

From a rocky prominence which if it were situated on the Rhine would certainly have provided a site for the castle of a robber baron I can observe our procession moving down the mountain. There are almost a thousand people: men, women, children and infants, like a black snake against the light green of the slopes.

Our boys who will now be away again for some time walk empty-handed. Brother, Sister, Mum, Dad or a friend are carrying their loads. They themselves are decorated with flowers and feathers which they have stuck behind their ears, into their shock of hair, or under their arm- and knee-bands. They are brightly painted with white clay and other colors, are wearing their best lava-lavas, and are strutting along like roosters.

Boisterous yelling, calling and singing accompany the procession and the native pigs dive off into the bushes in alarm.

We descend to the Sagae where it is fiendishly hot compared with the cool breezes of Mapos. The difference in altitude is five hundred meters. Everyone rushes into the water and cools off their steaming black bodies.

Only our boys stand stiffly on the bank and are reluctant to spoil their regalia. Just as hot as when they arrived they continue along the narrow path at the river’s edge and behind them follow the masses like an army of freshly bathed mice.

It is virtually impossible to describe the magnificence of the path we are now following. To our left are the mighty grass mountains, rounded and sparsely vegetated with oaks from the tertiary period, and to the right gigantic, grass covered walls which rise up almost perpendicular and always awaken the sculptor in you with their foundation of marble. You become sure you can discern the outlines of grotesque heads and figures.

Every now and then these walls are traversed by waterfalls that murmur new stories from new regions to the “river of sung legends”. That river, in turn, winds in innumerable serpentines through the gorges of the mountain range, embedded white in the deep green of the reeds on its banks, flowing for weeks, months and years till it eventually pours the entire wealth of its treasure of legends into the ocean, the eternal mother of rivers and streams.

It is three o’clock and in front of us black rain-clouds are moving across the sky. To the right, halfway up the slope, there are a number of natural caves that should offer good shelter for the boys and their loads. I therefore decide to call a halt; it will probably take some time before the last stragglers arrive.

I have our small three-man tent erected in the grass on a small hill. It has the shape of a slanting roof that is open on three sides. Freshly cut grass, kunai as the natives call it, serves for beds.

Then night falls. The rain has passed and above us there is a cloudless, pitch black, starry sky.

All around us there are a hundred little fires at which our porters are encamped with the friends and relatives who have accompanied them up to this point.

A largish group has gathered together and is singing evensong; the same melodies that we heard in Mapos.

A few young lads have climbed to the hill opposite; they are in high spirits and have set fire to the grass. Soon the entire slope is alight.

The background is now glowing red and the fiery tongues that lap into the night sky are bright yellow. There is no danger as the river lies between us and the fire.

From our beds in the tent we can recognize three figures that are contrasted as dark silhouettes against this background. They are standing on a little prominence and singing with high, shrill falsetto voices. It sounds like a reveille and I am reminded of the muezzins in Persia and Arabia who called the faithful to prayer from the towers of the mosque. Like them our singers incline their heads and cup their hands over their ears.

Everyone is silent, listening. Only the tam-tams that do not fall silent all night accompany the singing with their threatening, provocative monotone.

The burning mountain, the murmuring of the river, the monotonous melancholy song, the rhythm of the drums and the black, naked figures squatting around the camp fires and walking noiselessly through the night seem to create a dream that has magically become reality and can never be forgotten.

The three of us sit on our bed of grass and say nothing. The atmosphere is too powerful and moving to allow a conversation to arise. But behind our separate silences there are probably much the same thoughts. 

Who are we, side by side in the midst of this foreign world? – Who are these three men who come from quite different continents and now find themselves dependent upon each other in this wild and lonely land: three white men in the midst of an unfamiliar, dark people? – If only one could uncover the threads of fate. – Why the three of us? Why here?

As though he had heard my silent question, Zakharov smiles at us both and says these simple words that seem to solve everything: “Three men under a tent.”

Yes, that is what we are! Three men under a tent, just as there have been two, three or four men under tents a thousand and more times. The camp life of people coincidentally brought together; a world of its own with its own problems, its own laws and its own destinies.

The fire has burned down, the singing has ebbed away and once again a cloudless, pitch-black, starry sky stretches above us. Only the tam-tams still beat restlessly like excited hearts till the break of morning.

Now the crowd of fellow travelers leaves us. The women with their infants in the net or on their hips go back to their villages and their work in the fields, the children back to the mission school or their games, and the men who aren’t working as porters for us go back to the mountains and forests to check on recently set hunting traps.

With only eighty men we follow the course of the Sagae downwards. The walls of its banks now tower up more steeply and narrowly and its current becomes ever stronger till at last it hurls itself down over a sudden precipice. We are forced, again and again, to scramble over mountains and along the steep sides, precariously holding onto tufts of grass. You have to test every step very carefully and dig a foothold with the point of your shoe.

As I turn around and admonish the others to be careful, I suddenly slip. My stick falls into the depths. I can just manage to hold onto a tuft of grass. My feet find no support any more and my whole weight hangs from this tuft. It must give way soon. I can’t move and my cries are swallowed up by the noise of the river. But Beak has noticed my fall from afar. Realizing my desperate predicament he comes racing over with the agility of a monkey and manages to drag me to safety using all his strength.  

Once the eighty men have then trodden out the trail, Soltwedel and Zakharov can negotiate the spot without a problem; they laugh at the shaky legs I have for the next half hour.

It is not just legends that the river tells; it knows of life and of death too. When we round a certain bend, we see, on a sandbank on the other side, the mutilated and bloated corpse of a young girl, black upon the white sand, surrounded by driftwood from the last flood.

We are told by the boys that she fell down the waterfall at Quassang, a village close to Mapos, a few days ago. Her husband had chewed too much beetle-nut that day, had suffered from an attack of bad temper as a result and had beaten her up. There are obviously the same problems in the world of the blacks as there are among white people. Our boys wanted to bury her but the river was too deep and raging and they could not get to the other side.

When we reach camp the boys tell us about the Kanakas of the right bank who relapsed into cannibalism a few weeks ago in spite of the mission station there; and since all are still spooked after finding the corpse they keep large fires going at night and only very few of them sleep.

The dog too is very restless, constantly running into the bush, barking wildly and coming back with fur bristling. But we cannot discover anything. It is probably wild pigs or other wild animals. All the same, my two shoot-boys ask me for rifles and cartridges because they are afraid of an attack by the cannibals. I do them the favor and both of them keep watch all night; they are full of self-importance and see themselves as the protectors of the camp.

The following day was to show me the full expanse and magnificence of the mountains of New Guinea. The valley of the Sagae is only a minor landmark compared with the scenery that now met our eyes.

We leave the “river of sung legends” and initially climb up the grassy slopes. The boys go on ahead and we three white men stroll behind for today’s hike is not long.

Having reached the top we find ourselves on the edge of an enormous basin framed by mountains. The heights are all covered with thick rain-forest but deep down below there are extensive undulating grass steppes crossed by streams and rivers that reflect the trees on their banks. It is impossible to describe the beauty of this landscape: its expanse, its colors and the silhouettes of the mountain ridges and crests that build up one behind the other.

We sit on the ridge we have reached and forget to talk; eventually the experience finds expression in a delight of almost unknown intensity.

After that we walk down into the valley to the forsaken village of Mengau and a bath in the cold mountain stream with its white pebbles and once again a camp in the middle of the Kunai grass, open to the night wind and the gleam of the stars.

That night I dreamed we were three white maggots in a butter bowl and the sky above was a bell-jar. – I already had the fever in my bones that was to break out fully next morning.

Walking with forty degrees fever, a raging headache, aching bones and painful skin and scalp through thirty kilometers of a sun-drenched steppe, is not one of the more pleasant experiences in life. But we could not hold back the eighty men for my sake; apart from that, I was hoping to cure myself by sweating on the way. But I did not sweat, in spite of the external and internal heat. At lunch-time I lay down in the grass beside a creek and dropped into a dead sleep while the others ate their meal. It was not until shortly before dark that we arrived at the Bulolo, at the junction where it pours into the Wattut River.

I took quinine and aspirin and went to bed straight away. In the evening a worried Zakharov woke me and administered a stiff brandy as well as some soup made from a freshly caught Bulolo fish. That night I caught up on the sweating I had not done during the day and next morning, thank god, I was back to normal.

It was a particularly beautiful morning. We start off and first cross the Bulolo at a place where it widens to seventy feet, wading up to our hips in water.

When we have all reached the far bank there is suddenly an anxious cry from the other shore. Who is it? Naie, of course who had been busy chasing after a forest rat and missed the crossing. Now he is standing there without a stitch on, his lava-lava wound round his head, unable to fight the current.

Beak, the boss-boy, fetches him through the water and before the little fellow has the chance to wrap his loincloth around the region intended for it, he is given a few hard slaps on his two black buttocks and the rat, which he had actually caught, is “confiscated”.

Now we are back in the dense forest consisting of Norfolk pines, firs and bunya-bunya trees. Their trunks stand erect like columns. Some of them have a diameter of more than four meters and their crowns seem to reach up for ever.

Strangely enough, the parasites of the jungle such as creepers, orchids and ferns are absent here. The giants are so imposing that these minor plants apparently don’t dare to approach. The crowns alone can occasionally be covered with a light green almost grayish moss but that just adds to their dignified appearance.

Only man with his utilitarian habits of thought would consider how one could turn this forest into money and sure enough Soltwedel is saying:

“I considered building a saw-mill here some years ago. I was going to raft the trunks down the Bulolo, Wattut and Markham. But not far from here that damned Wattut has more than ten kilometers of intermittent gorges and waterfalls. There the logs would have got caught and splintered into a thousand pieces.”

Secretly there is something in me that rejoices that, for the moment at least, this forest will escape the axe of man and that it may even have the chance to grow for another hundred years.

While we are standing there, mouths agape and craning our necks to estimate the height of those firs, we suddenly hear Lump’s barking accompanied by some terrible squealing; it all has a strange hollow ring in this columned hall. Not long after, the boys turn up with a wild pig which Lump had cornered and held by one ear till they could get there. Almost simultaneously, a shot rings out that brings down a kangaroo.

In the course of the day, we then kill a cassowary and a few wild pigeons as well so that by the time we arrive at the Wattut River the cooking hut looks like a butcher’s shop and we get to listen to the lip-smacking enjoyment of our eighty blacks till far into the night.

Poor Zakharov doesn’t like it at all and pulls the blanket over his head.

Our tent is situated on a cliff, high above the foaming white Wattut. This is to be our first base for provisions. The hired porters are sent home next morning and we are now with our own boys only. A day’s march from here our field of activity starts: the region of the dangerous Rock-Papuas, the so-called Kuka-Kuka people.

Once we have completed our first day’s march from the Wattut base we enter into a chaos of mountains and gorges, streams and rivers and virtually impenetrable scrub.

We stay no longer than one to three days in any of the camps and while the other two men are usually prospecting and examining creeks and reefs geologically I am constantly on the move with the greater number of our boys to collect the remaining loads stage by stage. It was impossible to let the boys go by themselves as there was a risk that the wild Kanakas would plunder them on the way.

Rarely only were there native tracks we could use so we had to slash our way laboriously with machetes. Thus transportation was initially slow till the paths had been worn and provisions could be brought in more quickly.

Eight weeks passed in this way. They were strenuous, for the porters in particular, as there was little to buy from the natives and we had to reduce rice rations to a minimum to keep going at all. But in spite of this meager fare they carried their fifty pound loads day by day along treacherous paths across the mountains without a word of protest. On the contrary, they could have served as an example to us with their good humor in spite of hardships.

In this region it rains daily. We only counted three days that were reasonably fine. We were never really dry and since the paths usually went up and down in creek beds and the tree trunks that were completely covered in moss were constantly dripping, it was only thanks to the agility of our men that we always had a fire to sit by at night and where we could more or less dry our clothes.

To cap things off it was cold at night. Spoilt by the heat of the coast we often slept with two or three trousers and shirts and two to three woolen blankets. During the day, however, the heat was moist and humid.

Here our men again proved their worth; used to the cold wet climate of Mapos they saw nothing wrong with the weather. With their naked bodies they shivered less than we did in our warm wrappings. In spite of their eternally rumbling stomachs they never stole food and hardly ever snacked. Even Naie, who was distinguishing himself as the cook and kitchen boy, converted his kleptomania to begging under the good influence of the others.

Of course there were occasions where I had to use the stick on one or the other of them,  Naie in particular; but they thought that was quite in order since they could see that they had deserved it.

Two days after leaving our camp on the Wattut we first made acquaintance with the natives there. We had followed the course of a larger stream when our men saw Kanakas to the left and the right of us in the thick undergrowth; they were walking parallel with us. Every now and then we also saw the wet imprint of a naked foot on the rocks.

We decided to set up camp on a spot about thirty meters above the stream.

Shortly before dark we heard the calls of natives from the upper reaches of the stream.

“Hold on to the dog, tie him up,” Soltwedel yells out. “If he chases them away they will never come again. We are dependent on them.”

When you enter into relations with wild natives everything depends on the first moment. We were hoping to buy field produce from them so that we could save the rice and last out for longer.

We call back and they answer again and approach step by step. Finally, in a curve of the stream, eight superbly grown men, festively adorned with feathers, necklaces and strings, with a variety of cape from beaten bark on their backs and wearing short grass skirts held with a belt of bones, appear before us. In one hand they carry their bow with a bundle of arrows, in their belt the stone club, and hooked across their shoulder a stone axe. Stone age men: men of the Tertiary period in Zakharov’s geological lingo.

We wave for them to come up and show them our empty hands as a sign that we do not hold weapons. Lump barks like mad but they can see he is tied up. Wild Kanakas are afraid of large dogs in much the way we are of lions and tigers. Eventually, though suspicious and hesitant, they come up the narrow path to our camp.

We give hospitable signs of friendship and they respond by slapping us on the chest with an open hand. Then we point out our treasures: axes, tomahawks, knives and plane irons; the latter they normally use to attach to their cross hatchets instead of the stone.

The effect is as expected: They take the things, touch them, test the cutting edges and try them out on the nearby trees. Their delight is great and they would like to take off with their trophies there and then. But that’s not how it works. Only with difficulty and gentle force are the things returned to us again.

In deaf and dumb language the men are then told that the things are theirs but they have to bring field produce first. As a guarantee, I chop an axe or a knife or an iron into a tree and in token that they have understood they each tie a piece of bush-string around one of them.

Zakharov surprises us greatly when he cleans and bandages a deep wound in the hand of one of the men.

At nightfall they move off and we have to admire the beautiful elastic gait of their muscular bodies.

First thing next morning they bring a variety of garden produce: but not enough, and it is not an easy task to explain to them that though the weapons fastened to the trees belong to them, they first have to go and get some more fruits.

In the course of the following days they got used to us and we to them and they ended up providing us with enough to save half our rice rations.

Admittedly, they did not have much themselves for they are hunters constantly moving from one area to another and only plant small gardens in places where they are going to stay for a few months. They also have no villages; all they do is build a light rain shelter from leaves, though where they stay longer and plant gardens they usually build one or two round dwellings on stilts.

They are the only Kanakas known in New Guinea who are not afraid of the dark. They hunt at night and also conduct their raids at night which gives them considerable superiority over other tribes which are so afraid of nightly ghosts and magic that they will not leave their huts. It can be seen as an indication of their primeval cultural healthiness that they would not accept anything but iron tools as payment for the produce they provided. Lava-lavas, matches, and mouth organs aroused no interest. They thought our clothes were funny and interesting but by no means desirable.

Informative too was another encounter with them when one day Zakharov and I happened to come close to their hidden stilt dwellings on the upper reaches of a river. We were just brewing a cup of tea for lunch break when several natives stepped out of the thicket and after lengthy precautions approached and eventually sat down at our fire.

We showed them a watch, a compass, the wonders of the magnet, told them the names of various things and in return were told designations for the most important objects of use and exchange like pig, dog, forest, tree, path, axe, bow and arrow which we noted down.     

There we also discovered the names of the streams and rivers that flow into the left bank of the Wattut and these names are an indication of the vocal beauty of their language: Weganda, Odibanda, Irua, Fortinante, Minja, Aijakudanda, Ikedanda, Jedanda, Mirawanda, Morma, Ahwiganda etc., with the voice raised on the last syllable as for a question.

While we were talking we heard the soft humming of a plane in the distance which was probably on its way to the landing site of the Wattut Company. Before we could say anything they all pointed in that direction and called out together: “Junkers!’- “What?” - “Junkers, Junkers!” they repeated for our unbelieving ears.

Later we found out that Baum, who else but Baum, had been there before us and had taught them the name.

I had noticed earlier that the natives appeared to be particularly interested in Naie. They kept on pointing to him and laughing with pleasure until Naie enlightened us, grinning impishly, that he had been with Master Boom on that occasion and knew the hunters quite well. It was here on the Odibanda that the disaster with the tins of meat had happened and it was from there he had crept back all alone to distant Mapos.

Naie also had another adventure here: Baum had left his camp, entrusting it to the care of two of his boys and Naie for a few days. When he did not return at the arranged time the two boys went off with rifles to look for the master, leaving Naie to defend the camp.

The result was that the bush hunters who had been sneaking around, constantly observing every move the white man made with their scouts, took advantage of the favorable opportunity, captured Naie and tied him to a tree so as to have peace and quiet to plunder the camp, though in the end there wasn’t much that was of use to them.

Naie, however, remained tied up for an afternoon, an entire night, and half the next morning till Baum came back and released him. But in spite of all the fasting he had not come to grief. On the contrary, he was now finding the joke of which he had been the butt quite good and grinned with amusement when he saw the erstwhile culprits again.

One day Zakharov and I and ten of our boys went up a tributary of the Ahwiganda leaving Soltwedel back in the main camp. We pitched our tent near the water where the stream runs through a gorge so deep that it was hard to find a suitable spot. From here we wanted to go out prospecting. On the way Beak had shot a dingo: a female brown and white checked example of an Australian wild dog whose existence in New Guinea was unknown till then. The six pups of the approximately month-old litter were caught by the boys. Proud to have their own private dogs that promised to be as large as Lump one day they shared their by no means plentiful meal with them. One day they will, of course, realize that the dingo is a predator that can’t be tamed and trained like an ordinary dog. They will then come to the only logical conclusion and slaughter their pets in a fairly unsentimental fashion, thus recompensing themselves for what they had earlier sacrificed. The slain mother was roasted and consumed with great delight. Zakharov managed to prevent the young ones being given of the flesh of their mother, a prohibition that was incomprehensible to the men. For Kanakas meat is meat; the fathers of our boys were still cannibals. European prejudice and sentimentality, Beak would have said if he had known the Trepan-English words for all that.

Next morning Zakharov goes up the river and I cross the ridge to another stream. Wherever I go I wash samples and examine the rock but nothing of interest turns up. I go further up and after climbing a rise I reach an extensive densely wooded plateau. In a small gently bubbling creek I wash a sample. Tin! Almost a kilo of tin in a single dish.

My surprise and joy are unbounded. I drive the boys on and they cut a path through the bush with feverish haste. Another little creek; another sample, tin again! And this time more than the time before. The same in a third creek. Then I wash a sample of dry soil from beneath the surface layer of humus. Tin once again. - Now back to camp at full speed to inform Zakharov!

I force a short cut through the undergrowth and reach the course of a larger stream. There the boy points out a newly cut branch and fresh tracks in the grass.

That gives me quite a fright. Should another prospector have got here before us? Moments of great anxiousness. We follow the tracks. Now the boy points out footsteps in the sand. I recognize Zakharov’s shoes and Naie’s little footprints.

Zakharov and I arrive at the camp almost simultaneously.

“Have you found anything interesting?” I ask.

“I have found tin”, he answers and produces a rusty old tin.

“But I have found real tin,” I burst out and produce my tin.

Zakharov has a look at it.

“Looks like tin,” he says, “hum, very nice, but first let’s try the magnet. If it is tin it won’t react.”

He holds out the magnet and swish - all the iron is stuck to it!

Unfortunately, things are not always what you think they are.

To top matters off we are caught in heavy rain on the way back to camp so that we eventually arrive there wet through and much sobered after a hike of many hours. That is probably also what caused the fever which now took hold of me with hitherto unknown vehemence. Staggering, wracked by the shakes, I lie down immediately. In my state of tumultuous imaginings and confusions Zakharov needed all his strength to hold me down in bed. The fever continued until morning.

Zakharov had spent all night sitting beside me and caring for me. Even though communal life in the bush gradually erodes your manners and hardens your hearts it produces a finer and more lasting treasure: the helpfulness of hard men in a life without women, born of togetherness in times of illness and danger. But few words are lost over it. “Are you able to walk again?” Zakharov asks next morning. “Yes, my temperature is down.” “Then let’s leave straight away,” and the matter is closed.

On another occasion Zakharov and I went up the Minya with a tent and ten boys. But we soon left the river and tried to climb the 8000 foot high ridge. Pulling ourselves up on roots and lianas, in front of us three boys who are chopping a narrow break through the undergrowth, we laboriously work our way up.

Just before we reach the top we suddenly hear a shot coming from Soltwedel’s camp. After that two or three more in the far distance, hardly audible. Has something happened to him? Should we go back?

We fire off three shots in short succession and listen. No answer. The same signal again on our part. But only the soft rustling of the forest and in the far distance the rushing of the Minya are to be heard. After a good deal of indecision we decide to go on.

Around three we are up on the ridge and come across the felled trees of an abandoned Kanaka garden. From here we have our first unrestricted view in every direction since our time on the Wattut. We remain there for almost an hour, find our orientation and see how on all sides one densely forested mountain ridge follows the other; like a huge, wild ocean where the waves have solidified overnight.

Then we follow a ridge formed by a single gigantic iron reef and as darkness falls we reach the source of the Minya. There we set up camp for the night.

But our boys are restless. On our trek they have seen dark, lurking figures in the scrub and discovered the roofs of concealed stilt huts that lie directly on the ridge above us. They also point to recently broken twigs and fresh footprints.

Should the bush hunters really have hostile intentions? Were those shots from the direction of the main camp this morning perhaps emergency signals after all? We reproach ourselves for not turning back earlier and decide to keep watch that night, each with one boy. If Lump were with us now this would hardly be necessary but we have left him with Soltwedel.

It turns out to be a long night and scouring the dark with our eyes which are accustomed to light is extremely strenuous. At various times our boys believe they can see figures creeping around in the dark; but however hard we try, our eyes perceive nothing.

Next morning the boys are proved right. Everywhere on the dewy ground the fresh foot and hand prints of natives are recognizable and, as to be expected, they all lead up to the huts above us on the ridge.

We had intended to stay away for a few more days but due to our concerns about Soltwedel we decide to go back immediately. On the way we want to go a short cut and in doing so lose our bearings in the dense scrub. Finally the distant barking of Lump tells us the direction of the camp.

On our return we find everything is in order. Soltwedel too had slept very little and kept watch for a long time since the dog had been unusually restless. His boys also believed they had seen figures.

The Kanakas had almost certainly planned a raid but in view of our armed wakefulness had thought better of it. The shots which we thought we heard the day before had not come from Soltwedel. This experience taught us even greater caution for the future, particularly as the black hunters did not come back to trade their produce.

It is a peculiar feeling to be constantly aware, when you are in the jungle, that inaudible, invisible figures are hiding in the thickets, that lurking eyes are watching you, ears listening to you, like beasts of prey following the quarry they have scented.

Such excitements may have their attraction but the loss of the fresh produce we were counting on threw our plans in a heap. By now our rice rations were only enough for three days.     

This was all the worse because we had reached the source of the Wattut or Ahwiganda, at a place where the river divides into three branches. We were a full nine days distance from Wau which was, unfortunately, the only place where we could supplement our provisions.

This night our camp is close by the river, only two meters above the water level. For dinner Zakharov has cooked his favorite meal, curry and rice, but without using tinned meat as an ingredient; instead there are two fat wild ducks that I killed this morning from my bed with only a single shot! Naie, always on the lookout for quarry, had noticed them in the river. He woke me excitedly and pushed rifle and cartridges into my hand. I aimed as I lay and pushed the trigger; without even waiting Naie rushed into the water with a wild leap and caught them just before the current could carry them away. Naie is clearly convinced that I am omnipotent. The master only has to push and “all he die finish.”

The shot woke the two others who began the morning sacrilegiously with a whole series of curses. But when Naie displayed the two ducks they soon calmed down, although they were of the opinion that my masterful shot had been nothing but a “bloody coincidence”.

At night we then filled our stomachs up nicely. Naie greedily chewed all the bones I gave him all over again before he threw them to Lump, and he and Lump kept on marveling at me, their eyes bright with pleasure.

After that the three of us lay under our sail, let Naie serve us coffee in the tent and held a relaxed council of war. “Do you want to go to Wau tomorrow and get provisions, Beinssen?” “Fine with me,” I say, “but I am afraid you will have starved by the time I get back. It is nine days to Wau and then with provisions ten days back. We only have three mats of rice left for the boys.” But Soltwedel reassures us: “I have looked at the map. The trek along the normal devious route can be considerably shortened. You only have to go up the next stream on the right of the Wattut, climb across the ridge, and then you’ll see Wau. You can go down its river due east. There is only one ridge that separates us from the valley of the Bulolo. You can be there in a day or two, buy provisions, and on the evening of the third or fourth day you can be back without any trouble.”

The venture seems feasible to me, particularly as the map is an aerial one with only the detail drawn in by hand; so the proportions should be fairly correct. If I head due east I will eventually have to run into the Bulolo: But when?

I therefore say: “Keep provisions for a fortnight for the two of you and for three boys only. I will take the rest of the food and the remaining twenty-two boys for the quickest possible transportation of the supply loads. We’ll do our best.”

Then we start chatting and Soltwedel expresses the opinion that the time has come to reduce the loads by drinking the last bottle of brandy. Even though there’s only one bottle left that should be enough to make us merry and talkative for our farewell.

“Have I told you the story of when I went to the Ramu River with Jack and Bill six years ago?”

“No, Soltwedel, that’s a yarn I haven’t heard,” Zakharov replies, “go ahead.”

“I almost lost my head on that occasion, not metaphorically but literally. - We were sitting in a village and had just finished our lunch when Bill noticed that something had got under the plate of his false teeth. Without much fuss he took out his teeth, removed the impediment and put them back in his mouth. The chieftain and the many blacks who always surrounded us inquisitively were simply speechless. With eyes and mouths agape they demanded to see the magic spectacle again. So Bill had to repeat the business many times to the applause of a hundred Kanaka voices. Bill’s success aroused Jack’s ambition; he had lost an eye in an Amsterdam pub. He took out his glass eye, showed it to all, looked around the corner with it, then also behind his back and finally returned it to its proper place. The amazement was huge. Everyone thought they had the world’s greatest magician before them. All that would have been fine, a joke as old as the invention of false teeth and glass eyes, if Jack in his devilish meanness hadn’t told the chieftain that what they had seen up to now was nothing. For the other master - and that was me - could actually take off his head and put it back on. That was too much for the head hunters and they would not leave me in peace, although I swore that I couldn’t and the other master was a big joker. They just didn’t believe me but rather Jack and since I wouldn’t take my head off they wanted to create the spectacle themselves and a dozen hands were already reaching for my hair. Only with difficulty and with the intervention of Jack and Bill could I eventually save myself.”

We thought the story amusing and laughed and Naie, lying under the bed, chimed in with his bell-like laughter. Of course he didn’t understand a word but he just has a feeling that he has to join in when others enjoy themselves and then he can’t stop and continues to laugh about his own laughter.

While we were still telling each other stories of this kind the floodgates of heaven opened accompanied by thunder and lightning and dumped down as much water as falls in Australia in an average year. Though it was dripping onto our beds and whipping in through the sides we weren’t going to let it spoil our nice brandy mood.

“A few months ago in Salamaua I heard a story that gives you a good idea of the psyche of the gold prospector,” says Zakharov, shouting above the roar of the rain and the howling of the six dingoes. “I’ll have to tell you. Once three old gold prospectors died and went to heaven. They had been there for less than a fortnight when a fourth gold-digger asked to be admitted. ‘Who are you and what do you want here?’ asked St Peter. ‘Holy St Peter, let me in to heaven. I have led a good life. I was a gold-digger.’ ‘If you were a gold-digger I can’t help you. No gold-digger is coming in here again! The three who arrived the other day have created a huge mess in next to no time. They are ripping up my golden stairs; they have dug prospecting holes in all the clouds so you can’t walk there at night anymore; they are panning the golden stars from the blue vault; they even intend to excavate the Milky Way, and they have been recruiting all the black mission angels to work for them. No, I’ll never do that again.’  But our candidate understood the psyche of the gold digger: ‘If you let me in, St Peter, I’ll promise you to get rid of the others in a single day!’- St Peter who hadn’t succeeded in separating the three from their rich finds of gold and showing them the door, accepted the proposal in spite of misgivings. On the very next day our gold-digger came to St Peter: ‘They are out. They crept away in all secrecy last night.’ ‘Tell me, how did you manage that?’ ‘I just told them there had been a new big find in hell; that was all it needed.’ - So our candidate was allowed to stay in heaven. But it was only a week before he came back to St Peter all embarrassed. ‘Good St Peter, let me out again.’ ‘Where to, my son?’ ‘To hell. You see, the other three haven’t come back. That makes me think there may have been some truth to the rumor after all!’”

We liked the story, thought it hit the nail on the head, and laughed loudly even though the rain was drumming down ever harder and splashing us in our beds.

‘Now I am going to tell you a story from your own Russian homeland. Do you know the story of Catherine the Great and the tall soldier’, I ask.

‘No smutty ones, please,’ Zakharov requests.

‘But it’s a good one, even though the moral may not be edifying...”

 I could not go on, however. In the distance we suddenly heard a rushing that rose to a roar and was soon drowning out the drumming of the rain.

‘A flood wave is coming. Rescue what’s essential,’ Soltwedel shouted.

And the three of us were up in no time, dragging out what we could get hold of from under the beds and throwing the things onto the raised stretchers.

By that time the flood was already storming down and in no time the water was a foot high in the tent while we and the boys who had rushed to help were holding on to the tent and the bed posts. That went on for what seemed an eternity till eventually the current subsided. Then drainage trenches were dug by the wan light of lanterns and levees thrown up. After more than two hours of work the tent was dry enough for us to line up the loads on logs and supports again.

It was not till around midnight that we were back in our totally drenched beds and my comrades didn’t encourage me to continue my amusing story about Catherine the Great and the tall soldier.

Morning showed a somewhat friendlier face. I took leave and equipped with compass and map and accompanied by my twenty-two porters I departed.

We have to go due east and the stream also comes from an easterly direction. There are no paths or tracks so we walk upstream through the water. But after an hour the stream turns sharply to the south. So we leave it and laboriously climb the precipitous ridge and eventually a peak that rises above the forests.

According to Soltwedel’s estimation we ought to be able to see the grassy plains of Wau from here. But there is nothing to give you your bearings. High mountains and gorges were blocking a view of the distance. I get out the compass to find the easterly course. But in that direction there is only dense jungle pushing against the walls of sinister mountains.

So we initially stay on the ridge and follow it until it too veers to the south. Consequently we have to make our way down steep slopes into a valley. Far below, hidden by trees, we hear the rushing of a river. I let the exhausted trail blazers be relieved; the others will now have to hack through the undergrowth. Compass in hand I indicate the direction.

Finally, by now it is afternoon, we discover the river deep down below us. Unfortunately, it flows as in a concrete canal with perpendicular walls almost sixty meters high along the sides of which we now work our way, puffing and panting. But there is nowhere where we can get down. What’s more, heavy rain sets in and soon we are surprised by nightfall.

The area here is so fissured and steep that we can’t even find where to set up our tents. Feeling our way in the dark we try to discover a level spot but eventually have to erect the tents on the edge of the precipice.

This region is the loneliest, eeriest wilderness I have ever seen. It is unlikely that a human foot has ever stepped into it for, however much we searched, we could find nothing that pointed to the trace of humans beings

The night is impenetrably dark. Far down below the river is rushing and the rain, which has now stopped, is still dripping from the trees. A heavy, overpowering smell of black earth and wet moss rises up.

It is peculiarly quiet all around, but also loud. A painful, shrill silence of dead sounds.

In the distance possums scream and tree kangaroos call out to each other in fear; voices like human distress calls, short and without echo.

Close by there is a rustling in the bush as though someone were sneaking up. Then suddenly the fleeing steps of an animal.

The boys in the tent next door groan and talk in their sleep. One of them cries out, wakes and wakes up another who tells him off with subdued annoyance; then everything is quiet again and heavy with sound as before.

I lie in bed and cannot sleep. Thoughts and images storm through my head. I can see scenes from former times with great clarity as though they had just happened. I have a yearning for music that I have missed for so long. I remember melodies, sad Russian ones. I recall the record played in Salamaua and it brings back memories of these first days. And suddenly the night song of Zarathustra is before me, great and clear, as though it was the voice of this night:

I slept, I slept,

I have woken from a deep dream: -

The world is deep,

And deeper than the day had thought.

And then a phrase from Pfitzner’s Palestrina comes to my mind like the essence of a philosophy: “The innermost being of the world is solitude.”

Yes, solitude! - Solitude is the essence of this night. And as though he were having the same thought, Lump licks my hand with the tenderness of a loving person. I am very moved.

“But, my good Lump, you only make things lonelier because we love each other and cannot speak with each other.” Yes, to love. - And I see the image of a woman and am overtaken by an overwhelming yearning. Sleep, sleep.

Did I sleep or am I just dreaming? There again that horrifying human cry of distress out of the darkness! It is raining again. Cry of distress? Yes from Zarathustra. The images and experiences with this woman return. Suddenly I have a designation for all this: sexual repression. And while I am still searching, half in my dream, from where this cynical wisdom has come to me, I wake up and have to laugh.

But morning is beginning to dawn and then I hear my voice calling the boys. What comfort, what strength giving force lies in your own voice! By now it is day and with it grows the will and strength for action.

Today we have to find the Bulolo! We will need to keep walking again till dark.

The tents are dismantled in no time and I can hear the rattling of the machetes again, hacking a track through the undergrowth. - The day is for action!

We continue to work our way along the edge of the river. But this leads north and we have to find a place where we can cross it. Eventually I order a tree felled which falls in a way that it comes to stand like a ladder at the edge of the gorge. Steps are chopped into it, a bush rope attached, and then we all climb down. Lump, who protests vehemently, is lowered down on a rope.

Now we have to find a way to get up again on the other side. We initially go down river. There are high walls on either side. If there is another cloud-burst like there was two days ago, we will be lost. But after walking for a while we get out, climb up along a ridge and then reach a complete chaos of mountains, gorges and precipices, so jumbled up that it is impossible to keep to a compass direction.

We have now been walking since five in the morning and it is growing dark. Dense clouds and mists block out the sun. Since my watch has stopped, I ask the boys whether it is evening yet. But rapidly falling darkness seems to make the question irrelevant.

So I order the tents to be erected and just as we have finished, a strong wind comes rushing along and blows away the cloud cover from the gorge. - The sun is laughing almost perpendicularly above our surprised eyes. It can’t be more than two o’clock.

So we dismantle the tents again and in spite of our tiredness, in spite of hunger, on we go. Through the cleared undergrowth our procession laboriously makes its way over mountains, down chasms, past small streams and always through dense forests as before.

Nowhere is there a view. One could despair. When will this forest wilderness end? 

There is nothing to tell us where we are and how far it might be to Bulolo. I curse the map like a trooper. But there is no other way. We have to go on. At a height of about three thousand meters, sweaty, rain drenched and shivering all at once, we set up camp and at last light a fire to warm ourselves.

I share my last tinned meat with Lump and the porters only get a meal of measly dry rice. They are annoyed and begin to complain:

“Where have you taken us, Master? We’ll never get out of here. Evil spirits that confuse the mind have cast a spell on this country. You can’t see anything. We have lost our way and will have to starve to death.”

I gather the boys around my tent and deliver a speech. I speak about Wau like Moses might have spoken to the Children of Israel about the Promised Land. I call on them to trust me as I have never let them down yet.

Beak, in the role of the mediator, draws my attention to the fact that “belly belong all he cry”. I answer that their bellies would be crying still louder tomorrow if I distributed the rest of the rice today, that my belly is putting on a veritable sing-sing and Lump has given up barking because his belly is doing that for him. They are to pull themselves together and not act like young Marys or old women. And if there is any more grumbling except by stomachs before we reach Wau, that person will have his cowardice driven out with the stick. Finish.

Later I can hear the hacking of busy axes. In the darkness the boys are chopping down a pandanus tree and half the night I can hear them hammering open the nuts.

Eventually there is quiet. But in spite of my tiredness I cannot sleep. Something in me is wide awake. And so the night passes in much the same way as the previous one.

Next morning, soon after starting out, we come upon a river. I take bearings with the compass and see that it is flowing towards the north east. We have obviously already crossed the dividing range so that this river must end up in the Bulolo.

I therefore decide to follow it but after an hour gigantic, perpendicular waterfalls block further progress. We therefore have to climb up the mountains again to circumnavigate further impediments. So up again we go, almost three thousand meters, scrambling past dangerous precipices, over landslides and small ridges densely covered with dwarf bamboo through which you can only work your way step by step.

On the summit Beak and a few other boys climb a tree. When they are swaying backwards and forwards on the highest branches like birds in the wind we can suddenly hear a howl of joy. They can see Kunai in a north westerly direction but a long, long way off.

“Will we be able to reach it today?”

“Impossible,” says the boss boy. 

There is a wide valley to the right but all is bush as far as one can see. Could that be the Bulolo? Am I south or north of Wau? After lengthy considerations I decide to make for the kunai. The ridge we are on also leads in that direction.

We waste no time resting and follow the ridge down. After a few hours the sides have become less steep and we hear the water rushing below. We climb down and discover the same river we were in this morning, only farther down. Here there are parrots and cockatoos and rhinoceros birds again; we can’t be much higher than a thousand five hundred meters. The river is broad and flowing gently so we can walk in its bed.

We are all exhausted and I have begun to look around for a suitable camp site when suddenly the boys ahead let out a wild howl of joy. They have lit upon a freshly cleared trail at the end of which, sparkling silver through the dark forest, we can see the softly flowing Bulolo. We hurry down, forgetting our tiredness, and in no time the tents have been erected and the fires are burning.

I distribute the rest of the rice. Now we know where we are; tomorrow evening we can be in Wau.

The boys are happy like children and with the speed that the rice from the cooking pots has disappeared into their stomachs all the pain has also been forgotten. You can’t but be fond of them in their simplicity and I join in their laughter, amused at their gluttonous merriment.

In spite of our hunger, or maybe driven by it, we race like cassowaries to Wau the next day. For everyone knows that there will be plenty of good food again there.

Consequently, once we have arrived our first trip is to the store. I buy three fat tins of meat for each of the boys. From an Australian entrepreneur who has planted gardens in Wau, agricultural produce is bought at enormous cost and our poor fellows are at last allowed to eat till there is no room to stuff in any more. That is the height of bliss.

There is mail too and I lie in my tent all night, also stuffed like a boa constrictor, and read.

At last a day that has ended happily, by bush standards.

In the morning there is bad news again. In the whole of Wau there is not a single bag of rice to be purchased. Due to bad weather only two or three planes have made it there in the last three weeks. The air company cannot guarantee to have new provisions brought in before another three or four week’s time.

I also find out that a few weeks ago a new goldfield was discovered on the upper Wattut. Around forty or fifty men have already got there. What was discovered must be what we were looking for ourselves, the source of the gold in the Wattut. Someone must have had wind of where we were going and arrived there before us. - What should we do now? - Zakharov and Soltwedel have to be informed but above all they need supplies. I decide to load up the boys with only the essentials in way of stores but to have them each carry fifty pounds of field produce. At the same time I order rice for later. Even though we could all do with a few days rest there is too much at stake. That is the reason why we have to get going again next morning.

Since we veered much too far north on the way there I decide to keep further to the south and initially use the comfortable track via Edie Creek. The boys are carrying full loads and our provisions will last for barely a week. So we have to be back in Wau in six days at the latest. This time we must not lose our way.

The track to Edie Creek, the biggest of the gold fields being developed in New Guinea, is good. I walk ahead and the boys trot after me; we can’t get over the dividing range today in any case.

With an even gradient the path winds up in countless serpentines and opens out to wonderful vistas across the Bulolo valley and into the ranges of the coast. After a walk of four hours you can see the Edie below, as though resigned to dragging itself through a bed churned up by humans.

That is where a small group of adventurers sought their fortunes and occasionally made them but where hundreds lost their money and in many cases their lives as well. Every piece of land here is pegged. Wherever you set your foot you are standing on soil that contains gold: a few ounces here, perhaps many hundreds there, waiting to be raised.

Everywhere people are hurrying and the calls and shouts of the laboring boys sound completely out of place in this world of primeval seclusion. Now and again there is a dull detonation to which the blacks in their childlike high spirits respond with wild shouting.

The respective owners stand or sit beside their individual claims and give instructions or drive on the boys with unambiguous calls. In this country no white man works himself, it would lower his prestige. His energy must therefore find an outlet in curses that direct proceedings. It is amazing what virtuosity in the lowest forms of swearing the Australian gold-diggers, already well trained from home, have achieved here. Though it remains to be seen whether they wouldn’t command more respect if they did a bit of work themselves. But these are matters of incontestable social convention and every gold-digger would consider his neighbor to be a dangerous agitator and anarchist if, spade in hand, he worked alongside his boys.

When you see them standing there in their gumboots, their muddy trousers, and their dirty shirts, crumpled hats on the backs of their heads and red handkerchiefs around their necks, it is hard to imagine that many of them are rich people, harder still that these men will one day return to civilization, buy elegant suits and cars and be free, free thanks to money that can buy you anything. - Anything? - Perhaps not. They may be free of the external fetters of everyday life. But will they know what to do with their freedom?

I have met many of these rough, but in their uncomplicated way often very sincere men, among them strange hermits of every kind. Wherever I pass them they invite me to drink with them. So I am handed on from one camp to the other in a hospitable round and when I have finally extricated myself and pitched camp at the source of Edie Creek, the evening twilight has set in not only over the landscape but in my head as well, befuddled as it is with whiskey and gin.

The morning is rainy and almost frosty. Autumn winds let you feel the autumn rains to the marrow. It is one of those days in the bush where you are better off staying in your tent and in bed and giving the boys the opportunity to warm themselves at big fires. But weather like this can continue indefinitely and every lost day counts and could endanger the waiting friends. Wet through and freezing we therefore leave the ‘civilization’ of Edie Creek and dive back into the dense forest with its barely discernable tracks.

We now have to cross the dividing range between Bulolo and Wattut and once we are on the other side find a stream that will guide us down to the Wattut. We will keep to the ridges and crests again and find a well worn track leading in a westerly direction. I notice fresh cuts in the branches and bushes. A white man must have walked along here not all that long ago.

Then the path leads to a creek and steeply along its course. Taking this direct but neck-breaking route, we have to climb down six waterfalls, several of which plunge down up to a hundred meters. In my view this should take us straight to the Wattut.

Suddenly the boys call out to me: “One feller master he come.” Is that Soltwedel or Zakharov? Could they hold out no longer?  But then I realize that this must be the way the people going to the new gold discoveries would be taking. And that is of course the case.

The white-haired old prospector whom I now meet tells me that he is on his way back from the new sites but that there is nothing tempting about them; forty men are still there but they’ll all be coming back very disappointed. Yes, there was gold, but in quantities too small for lucrative mining in that wild and remote area. Apart from that, the climate was worse than in Edie Creek: icy cold, with rain and mist.

Tired and disappointed though the old man was and in spite of the signs of ageing you could still see the extraordinary strength that dwelt in this body which had known nothing but a life of hardship. He asked me how far it was to Edie Creek and I told him of a spot where he could set up camp for the night. I then enquired about my comrades but he had not met them or heard anything of them. He thought that if I kept on going till evening I could get to the Wattut today.

Today! Then Soltwedel was right after all that you only had to cross one ridge to find the valley of the Bulolo. If that was the case we must have misjudged the position of our own camp; it must have been more northerly than we thought.

Now I know too what the shots we heard that other time meant when we thought Soltwedel was in trouble. They came from the people that were going to the new gold finds. That is how close one can pass each other in the jungle without being aware of it.

The old man was right. After a forced march we found the Wattut shortly before nightfall. In the light of the hand lantern the tents were hastily erected and we had no need of the murmuring of the water to put us to sleep. The exhausted porters threw themselves onto the ground, almost too tired to satisfy their hunger.

The freshly hewn track which we had followed so far now turned off to the south, up the Wattut. In the early morning we go downstream instead, again hewing our own path. Soon we come across fresh cuts again and at a spot sheltered from the rain the boys find the distinct footprints of Zakharov’s and Soltwedel’s shoes.

Like a tracker dog Zavil follows the trail, proud to show what he can do. Without worrying about his load he runs so quickly that I have to hurry not to lose sight of him.

After six hours we arrive in the old camp around midday; we had left it eight and a half days ago. Soltwedel is just baking bread with the last of the flour.

Zakharov, however, whose eyes usually scan the ground, is sitting on a tree-stump dreaming. I know that he is thinking of his wife in distant Queensland and yearning for her letters; I have them in my pocket though he can’t yet see me behind the bushes.

The joy at this unexpected reunion is sincere. I first deliver the mail and Zakharov takes his letters and goes off with unusual haste. He wants to be alone and read, just read.

So Soltwedel and I squat together in front of the warm camp fire and first have a drink from the brandy bottle I have brought with me. After that I report, unfortunately all bad news.

Towards evening the three of us have a council of war and can decide on nothing better than starting back for Wau next morning. The loads are packed and distributed that night and we leave at first light.

Since we now know the way, we reach Wau after a comfortable three day walk. There we put up our tent on the edge of the air-strip. The weather has finally cleared and it is a real delight to see the Junkers planes landing and taking off: beautiful birds, born of the ingenuity of man.

There Soltwedel writes his business resume and Zakharov his geological reports.

And thus end the first four months of our expedition. Unfortunately, for reasons of business confidentiality, I cannot reveal details about its positive outcomes in this travelogue.

Healthy and confident, we now set our hopes on the huge and still virginal region of

Mount Lawson.

PART  TWO

The fortnight of rest and recreation in Wau are over. We have supplemented our provisions, received new instructions from Rabaul, and early tomorrow we will be heading off into the unexplored wilderness of Mount Lawson.

The three of us are sitting on sacks of rice in the tent. Soltwedel is telling the story of his tour to the upper Ramu River with Baum, when their raft capsized so that they lost all their possessions in the river and had to walk barefoot to Madang for three weeks, eating only Kanaka food. In times when you feel safe and secure it is often good to remember hardships overcome. As we talk, Soltwedel is enjoying his pipe; its smoke mixes with Zakharov’s cigar smoke and the light blue plume from my cigarette.

As we are sitting there, occupied presumably with premonitions of new adventures and experiences, I remember an image from the battlefield. 

It was near Reims, on the eve of the last great offensive on our side in July 1918. Around midnight we had to move to the attack position and around three in the morning the offensive was to begin. In the falling dusk of that night, like now, I was sitting with two friends on the edge of a crater and we too were each smoking something different: pipe, cigar and cigarette. We wrote high spirited cards home though in our hearts there was something that bore a strong resemblance to fear. But it was fear paired with determination; perhaps also with a sense of trepidation born of premonition. For when I looked at my two comrades I was forced to think: One of us will fall, one of us will be wounded and one will survive. - And then the speculation: Who will it be? Which of us will die, who will survive?

At sunrise one of us was already dead. On the evening of the next day we had to go through a dense wood. Suddenly there was a call from the undergrowth: “Hey, take me along, I am wounded!” It was the other one who had a severe injury from a shot in the leg. It was four weeks before we were relieved and I had to keep on feeling my body as though it were a miracle: I was still in one piece.

Why does this memory rise up now? - Pipe, cigar, and cigarette!

I try to shake off these thoughts and walk over into the forest to climb yonder hill. It is capped by a solitary giant of a tree and from there you can see far into the distance. The sun has set; I want to have another look at the view before dark. Lump walks beside me as though he too were weighed down by thought.

When I reach the foot of the hill, uncertain whether to climb it in the twilight, the lament of Matapui suddenly rises up from the limitless veil of the evening’s silence. The melancholy of the notes is about to get the better of me.

Lump barks sharply, becomes lively again, chases up the hill and raises himself against the trunk of the giant tree, barking madly. Matapui falls silent. I can discern how it rises up from the crown and streaks into the twilight.

It is growing dark. I hasten back, Lump barking and jumping around me. Through the trunks of the forest our campfire flares up and shines in welcome. I suddenly start singing and run a race with my dog. I need to hurry and get back to my friends in the camp, to celebrate this last evening behind the lines.

When I get there they are both standing beside the fire with brandy glasses raised, calling out to me to be quick. Naie fills a third glass which he holds up to me with his little hands. He already knows the “fashion belong white man” that they will only ever drink and be merry when they are together.

None of us are aware, however, that this will be the last unencumbered celebration for a long time.

Less than two days march from Wau Zakharov takes to his bed with severe diarrhea. In the morning we find out that he has dysentery. Two days later Soltwedel discovers he has the same problem. Now they are both laid low with wracking pains and we can’t go on.

My first thought: we have to prevent an epidemic. I give all the boys a strong prophylactic dose of salts, have their camp moved to another water source and order them to observe strict sanitary precautions. Our own camp is on a spring that rises directly out of the ground so that the water is completely fresh. The two patients follow a diet and take the appropriate medicine. 

This state of affairs lasts for a fortnight without any signs of improvement; fourteen bad days because both of them are disgruntled due to constant pain and frustration at being held up; they are easily irritated. Initially we white men keep control of ourselves with each other. But occasionally both the sick men lose their tempers with the boys. The poor fellows are yelled at without having done anything wrong. Confused with fear, they then get it wrong again and have to put up with more abuse. I try to keep them away from the camp as best I can, but the personal servants and the cook-boy live in constant fear.

I can’t really say much because the relationship between us whites is also very irritable. But I ask the sick men to give their instructions to me personally so as not to cause unnecessary distress.

The tensions become stronger from day to day. I persistently tell both of them to go to Salamaua where they can be cured. I would then stay with the boys in the vicinity of the surrounding villages where I could feed them cheaply with produce from the gardens. Soltwedel will consider it if there is no improvement in three days time, but Zakharov stubbornly resists.

The days pass with torturous slowness. Zakharov complains and groans a lot and is constantly bossing about little Naie, who in his helplessness seems to be considering whether he shouldn’t surreptitiously take off again.

I am sitting in the shade of the tent in a most depressed mood. The illness of the two weighs like a nightmare on my mind and Zakharov’s constant irritable scolding, which probably gives him relief in his suffering, strikes me like the drill of a dentist when it hits a nerve every time it happens. But I control myself for I know from my war experience that the best men often resort to being vocal as a safety valve. Still, it is ruining the boys; I will have to watch out that the bow is not overdrawn.

Fortunately I can transfer some of my own calm onto the boys. For this reason I send them off on long hunting and fishing expeditions each day and they often come back with a rich booty in way of game, fish, pigeons, and occasionally even eels a meter and a half in length.

As matters stand I have to keep an eye on the cook and house boys in particular. On the one hand they must not have the feeling that I think they are right and the sick master wrong, for white men must always give the impression of being of one mind. But on the other hand they have to know that I will treat them justly, that they should respect and obey the other master too but without taking his annoyance too seriously.

One night when we were all on the point of going to sleep Zakharov asks for Naie. He wants to drink boiled water. Naie is already asleep and does not hear him immediately. This triggers a furious outburst.

At that point Soltwedel sits up in his bed and he, who has made hardly a mention of his pains so far, who has put up with everything without reacting overtly, now tells Zakharov what he thinks of him. He says it in hard short words and declares that he is going back to Wau on the following day to be treated there. You can tell that he has controlled himself tremendously for weeks but his own illness and his friend’s lack of self control have finally got the better of him. So he speaks his mind.

Initially I get a shock but secretly I am glad for I tell myself that this explosion may sort things out.

Zakharov sits up and looks at us as though in surprise. There is the trace of a wistful smile about his mouth. In a milder tone Soltwedel tries to persuade him to come along and I suggest that he allow himself to be carried by the boys. He seems to be considering it, but suddenly all his features become tense and he cries with apparent contemptuousness: “Never! I am not going back! Do you hear!”

Next Morning Soltwedel transfers the leadership of the expedition to Zakharov as the older of us two. Since the latter is determined to hold out here till he is well again and all my attempts to persuade him otherwise are in vain, I decide to give in to his stubbornness and agree to stay with him.

Soltwedel then begs me to do all I can to change our friend’s mind. He had hoped strong words might make him see reason but unfortunately achieved the opposite. He had no doubt that Zakharov would be more sensible in a few days time and, following his example, sound the retreat.

Since Zakharov insists that I accompany Soltwedel we set out next morning with eight strong boys. But Soltwedel doesn’t want to be carried. Dragging himself along on his stick as on crutches, he did eventually manage to get there walking and half an hour after our arrival in Wau he was able to board a plane that took him to hospital in Salamaua.

Returning after an absence of two days I find Zakharov considerably more self controlled but hardly in the mood to speak with me. I feel that he is suffering and that this may be the moment to change his mind. So I talk to him, persuasively and sincerely. But at this point the fury at his own helplessness that he had suppressed for days suddenly unloads itself and he swamps me with a flood of accusations and suspicions that leave me speechless.

For many weeks now I have watched by his bedside day and night with only hour-long breaks and did this not only as a matter of course but from fondness for him whom I had come to value as a friend. And now to see all this misinterpreted makes me angry. By this time I am also at the end of my tether. I realize how much I have repressed; yelling over the top of him, with words much harsher than those of Soltwedel, I hurl my whole unconstrained anger at him.

In spite of lack of control on both sides, I had made sure that none of the natives were present at this altercation. It ended in exhaustion and with us no longer speaking with each other.

Now I don’t want to sleep in the communal tent anymore either and have my bed taken outside; but then suddenly I come to my senses again and remember that the person in there is severely ill. So I take my bed back in; when night falls I lie down dead tired but am too agitated to sleep.

So there we are both in one tent, not a meter from each other, two men who hate each other, who are enemies now. Hate? A terrible feeling of sadness oppresses me when I think back to the many wonderful hours of comradeship under this same tent and I suddenly become aware how much I miss Soltwedel and what he has meant to me. How marvelous and how valuable is the quality of self-control!

My revolver is hanging at the foot of my bed and when I sit up once to have a drink of water Zakharov apparently assumes that I am going to reach for my weapon. But he must have thought of this possibility earlier, for when I get up he reaches under his pillow and I hear the soft click as he cautiously disengages the safety catch.

Did he believe that I was going to shoot him? ---- Why?---- Afterwards nobody can explain that sort of thing any more.

I pretended not to have noticed and left the tent at the other end. When I came back, he still had his hand under the pillow but as he saw I was going back to bed he settled down and after a while I could hear him softly re-engaging the safety catch.

How strange is the soul of man; what primal instincts become discernable at such moments? -- The solitude of bush life, the dependence on always the same people, the renunciation of comfort along with so many of the acquisitions of culture and civilization, and not least a life without women isolate men, turn them into eccentrics and they end up no longer true to themselves. Without rhyme or reason respect can turn into contempt, fondness into resentment and even hatred. That leads to brooding and eventually, in semi-madness, acts are committed that later can neither be explained or excused. Acts of hysteria. Tropical madness!

Beside me lies a man whom I have suddenly begun to hate, whom I want to hurt. And he? He has similar feelings and because he is probably a little madder than I am he reaches for a weapon to defend himself.

But outside the stars are twinkling and the moon throws black shadows into the valley and turns the tree-tops and slopes of the mountain world around us to silver. I am suddenly very aware of all this. Deep in my subconscious I am normal and can see the situation with ‘objective’ eyes, and a little imp in my soul feels like laughing out loud at all that ado about nothing.

Towards morning I go to sleep and discover in myself the desire for reconciliation. But before I can say anything, while I am still searching for the right tone, Zakharov gives the brusque command that everything is to be prepared for tomorrow’s departure. He has decided to go on instead of turning back but is sicker than before. I want to point this out to him but he cuts off my intervention icily. The spark of reconciliation has been extinguished in me. I leave the tent without a word of reply.

Outside I slap my forehead for there is something wrong with me. I have the feeling that I have to act independently, ignore the sick man even if he gives orders as he is entitled to. For what he is doing is just affectation, the madness of his stubborn hatred of me.

But with the objective part of my mind I again realize what he, my enemy, is suffering; what toughness of will to want to continue in spite of his weakness and his pains, to refuse to be defeated by stronger external forces. I have respect for him, even though I know that his decision is crazy, that he will get worse on the way and will simply not manage. I feel responsible for him again but can see no possibility of persuading him.

I know that the further we go, the more difficult the return journey will be when his health has deteriorated still more and he finally consents to allow himself to be carried back.

But from the tent Zakharov must have observed my hesitation and without me noticing asked for the boss boy to be called. Because I can see Beak coming out of the tent and giving me a questioning look.

“What is it Beak?”

“The other master says we are going on into the mountains. Should I pack? What do you say, Master?”

Should a white man revoke the command of a white man? No, the dice have fallen and I tell Beak that that’s how it is; we will pack today and start off early tomorrow morning.

Zakharov can see and hear the preparations and it seems to calm him and do him good; it is the first time for weeks that he doesn’t yell at the house boys.

It is weeks too since I have heard Naie laugh. But this evening he is sitting, legs dangling, on a swinging branch by the boys’ fire and playing the jew’s harp. It reminds me of past times and I close my eyes to block out the changed situation.

The night comes and goes. I have not slept a wink. But Zakharov has actually had a full night’s sleep for the first time. Could it be true that pig-headeness and stubbornness win the day?

And so we move off, the boys and I only a few steps ahead and Zakharov and Naie with the bottle of boiled water behind. Completely out of breath, Zakharov drags himself up the steep mountain tracks with the help of his stick. Every few hundred steps he has to sit down and the cold sweat collects on his brow. But his face shows determination, a dogged determination which I don’t like. Okay, if there is no other way then it can be laudable and admirable but here it makes no sense and helps no one.

We drag on for the whole day in spite of my attempts to stop for a rest, which he rejects. Hardly a word is spoken. Around four o’clock we have still not covered a third of the day’s march.  Then Zakharov suddenly waves me over and begs me to set up camp here. This time he doesn’t command.

The familiar old tone of voice immediately awakens all that is good in me; I have the tents erected in the high grass on the upper Bulolo plain and help him to bed. He looks touchingly wretched but as yet there is determination in his features.

“I am, after all, weaker than I thought,” he excuses himself. “I’ll give myself fourteen days time here. If I am not better by then we will presumably have to turn back.”

So another fourteen days of misery and indolence! But I tell myself that they too will pass. Any attempts at persuasion now would only rekindle the hostile mood.

About two hours away, high up on the crest of a grass covered mountain ridge lie the villages of the Winnemah Kanakas. The day after our arrival I go up to greet the chieftain, bring gifts and promise him many times more if he sends us produce.

I come at the right moment as Winnemah is at war with the Wirre-Wirre villages whose men are accused of having murdered a Winnemah woman on the fields. While I was walking up I had already noticed that the entire ridge was heavily occupied by armed warriors in their finest war regalia and on the ridge in the distance and against the evening horizon great numbers of Wirre-Wirre warriors could likewise be seen to have gathered.

The villages here are all barricaded with high bamboo fences and the huts are in clusters and built on mountain crests that are hard to access.

The chieftain invites me into his hut and promises to send sufficient produce in return for our “neutrality”. I tell him, with poorly concealed amusement, that we would not get involved as long as he left us in peace.

In token of my sympathy I then painted his body, face and forehead with red paint in all sorts of grotesque figures and lines. This made a huge impression on him and all the warriors. Now they came, about a hundred men in all, and wanted to be painted too. But I declared that the red paint was something rare and valuable and I couldn’t just splash it about without rhyme or reason. If, however, they came with produce then I would paint one body for every net brought.

In their delight they perform a war dance in which they pretend I am the enemy. Backwards and forwards the swaying stamping crowd reels. The women who had initially gone into hiding when the white man entered the village, now show themselves again with their scores of piccaninnies and accompany the men’s dance with their rhythmic clapping. More than a hundred arrow tips are aimed at me, then a hundred clubs threaten to bash in my scull, and the whole performance is accompanied by a strange monotonous but inflammatory chant. 

These men are wild fellows and they would probably like nothing better than to bash in my scull for real. But fear that the other white men might revenge me or that I could haunt them after my death hold them back. At present, when they are at war with Wirre-Wirre, they can’t afford to have the white man for their enemy too. The lack of concern with which I watch the ceremony as though it were simply a beautiful and interesting spectacle is based on this assumption; it would of course have been a most interesting spectacle if I had seen it at the movies.

If the hair of the two boys who were accompanying me had not stood on end naturally, it would have risen to attention now. They stay close beside me. But the expression of the master does not reveal that he is constantly thinking of his revolver which hangs from his belt on the right; my brave smile probably reassures them that everything will be alright.

We arrive back at the camp in the dark, in the glow of the hand lantern with which Beak met us half way. He had come armed with rifles and accompanied by half a dozen of the bravest of our men. The telescope eyes of the boys had seen the warriors on the ridges and heard the chants and cries carried over by the wind. Believing that the master was in danger, they had come to my help without having received an order from Zakharov, without the latter even knowing anything about it. I was most gratified and let them feel my approval.

I didn’t tell Zakharov about my experience. It would have agitated him in his nervous helplessness as a sick man. 

Next morning the Winnemah people brought mountains of produce. Even though I had intended to do this barter business with knives and valuable goods, I could generally pay with only red paint which had gone up in value due to the war; thus two weeks of provisions for twenty-five boys cost us only a few shillings.

The remaining days limped along painfully slowly. To find something to do I went hunting a lot, did quite a bit of prospecting in the Bulolo and occasionally visited my friend, the warlike chieftain. He had still not fought his battle and was contenting himself with intimidating his equally undecided Wirre-Wirre opponent with noisy threats and a show of weapons.

Zakharov’s health is not improving and his pain becomes worse by the day. Sometimes he can hardly bear it at night and I have to make hot water bottles for him. Obviously the illness has already affected the lining of the bowel. Thank goodness the camp is peaceful. We have made up and try our hardest to treat each other considerately. But his rough and abusive behavior towards the boys is unchanged. His nervous irritability has to find an outlet and the boys are the scapegoats.

On the tenth day of our sojourn the great day of battle between Wirre-Wirre and Winnemah has at last arrived. About a hundred warriors on either side face each other on the grass covered slopes about three kilometers from our camp. Wild shouting accompanies the battle which expresses itself mainly in attempts to intimidate each other. Occasionally you see a whirring arrow and a Kanaka runs off.

I have found an observation point for myself as a war correspondent and watch the somewhat amusing to and fro with my binoculars. Just when the apparent boiling point has been reached it all ends with night lowering the curtain of darkness. The brave warriors now realize they are hungry and the noise dies down as both sides retreat. That night many of them file past our camp, fat bundles of unused arrows still in their hands.

Zakharov who is lying in bed helpless and whom I had not told about the state of war between the neighboring villages is worried at the sight of these wild looking fellows and asks me to keep them away from the camp. So I untie Lump who soon clears the area with his wild barking. 

That same night Zakharov undergoes a change for the worse. He suffers from terrible stomach cramps and loses a lot of blood. He is full of despair about his condition and also about having to give in after all. For now I put strong pressure on him to go back with me. He must have come to that decision himself for he immediately agrees and asks me to construct a chair in which he can be carried. That night everything is prepared. Eight of the strongest boys are chosen and given careful instructions for the trip while I hand over the camp with its provisions to Beak with the order to transport everything back to Wau as quickly as possible.

We leave at daybreak with Zakharov in the chair which is attached to long poles carried in turn by four of the boys. Around midday we call a rest at the highest point and quickly boil some cocoa. Then we pass our former camp and go down to the Bulolo. Half an hour before our arrival there is a burst of heavy tropical rain. We are all drenched, Zakharov too, in spite of umbrella and coat. The day has been very strenuous for him and he is completely exhausted. He again loses his temper and bitterly accuses me of carelessness because the boys don’t erect the tent and his bed quickly enough, although they are busily doing their job in the rain.

We continue on next day, carefully but with an accelerated tempo. Zakharov hangs in his chair, exhausted and hardly able to hold on. The naked shoulders of the boys are rubbed raw by the poles but not a word of complaint passes their lips.

Around midday one of them collapses. He has over-exerted himself and has a heart attack. I see to it that what is necessary is done and leave one of the boys back with him. When he has recovered he is to follow slowly. It was moving to see him suffer: the dumb mouth and the large pleading eyes of a wounded animal

In their ability to put up with hardship these Kanakas are very superior to the white man. Closer to nature through birth and death, closer also to the world of creatures, they resemble them in their stoic and fatalistic acceptance of misfortune. We, in contrast, tend to lose all sense of proportion and direction in our exaggerated desire to achieve; our impatience makes us lose our ability to bear suffering with patience.

In the late afternoon we can at last see the air-strip at Wau. Huge satisfaction and inner jubilation fill my heart. We have succeeded: we have managed to get our patient to where he can receive help and care before it is too late. All the pressure of the last weeks has suddenly dissipated. I feel warmth and fondness for the person who only recently thought he had to defend himself against me with a firearm.

As I now step up to his clean bed my rediscovered friend from past happy days takes hold of both my hands and, overcome with emotion, he thanks me. He wants to be told that I have forgiven him whereas I must ask him to forget whatever irritated him in my behavior.

In spite of his severe pain Zakharov asked for the porters to be called late that night and gave them each a generous gift; the same man who had always been so disgusted by their touch now shook their hands in friendship. Naie, however, gets a pat on the head and the eyes of the little rascal light up in childish happiness.

Four days later Beak arrived with all the loads and the boys. Not a grain of rice was missing.

By now it is mid December. A letter from Soltwedel asks me to fly down to Salamaua. I am to store the loads in Wau and send the boys back to Mapos on leave where they can take part in the Christmas celebrations of the mission. They are to meet us again on 28 December on the beach at Buang.

Soltwedel writes that he is much better. While Zakharov is recovering he wants to have another look at the tin we found. We will then return to Wau and pick up Zakharov who has decided not to go to hospital in Salamaua but to be treated up here in the Wau hospital instead. He had quickly made friends with the doctor there and everyone likes the patient.

I get everything ready and next morning all the boys start on their homeward journey to Mapos in high spirits. Only Zavil and Lump stay with me. The three of us will fly to Salamaua. Since the planned flight to the Bulowat did not come off, I now want to make good my promise.

The morning of this December day is magnificent. Early in the day there was still thick ground mist on the air field but the high sun forced it to rise. From the hospital, situated at the lower end of the airstrip, where I had stayed with Zakharov as guest of the British medical assistant we heard two planes circling a quarter of an hour before the mist rose, waiting for clear visibility to land.

The boys had already left and I made use of the time to discuss the technical and geological aspects of the prospecting excursion now planned with Soltwedel.

Since arriving at the hospital Zakharov is a new man. The security of civilization, the calm confidence of the doctor, and accepting the inevitable have already half cured him.

We say hearty farewells and he begs me not to take too long for the excursion since he is hoping to be well again in three weeks time. He is keen to pick up his work where illness forced him to abandon it.

So Zavil, Lump and I set out for the starting place. Zavil and Lump are to go to Lae in the Junkers limousine and then come to Salamaua with the pinnace; I will fly directly to the new airfield in Salamaua with the little sports craft. Zavil is anxious he might miss the plane; I can see his excitement and nervousness.

I have often wondered what a Kanaka might think an aeroplane is and how he would interpret the experience of flying. When he first saw a plane close up Naie asked me whether it was an animal. He could not imagine that something lifeless could roar and race into the heavens with such incredible speed. Zavil for his part doesn’t give it much thought. The word “mashin” covers everything incomprehensible and he probably doesn’t ponder about it any more than a horse would about a car. When he arrives in Salamaua in the pinnace that same evening and I ask him what it was like he just says “good feller.” But you can see how blasé he is with pride to have been the first of our boys to fly in the “ballus”. Later he is sure to report unbelievable things; he will want to appear almost like a white man in the estimation of his compatriots. Though much is made of the naturalness of primitive people they are quite often so blasé that they can’t really enjoy themselves.

When I arrive in Salamaua Soltwedel is waiting for me beside the hangar. He looks very thin but he is feeling well again. We are both happy to see each other and notice how close we have grown through our shared experiences. In the guest house, over an ice cold beer, plans for the immediate future are then discussed.

There follows the first hot bath after months of uncivilized bush life. With something approaching solemnity you take the unaccustomed white clothes, silk shirts, shoes and socks, out of a suitcase that smells of camphor and get dressed with great delight.

As I strut along the verandah all spick and span, it suddenly strikes me how comic my get up is and I have to think of my boys, how they left Mapos proud as peacocks with all their festive decorations.    

The hardships of bush life along with all those oaths never to go back, sworn in moments of despair, are soon forgotten. Civilized once again and bored with doing nothing you can only think of your next project, make plans, and be full of enthusiasm for what is to come, for a new period of similar deprivations which is inevitably the price for the magic of the experiences you are going to have.

We stayed in Salamaua for Christmas. Most of the gold-diggers had flown in from the fields to celebrate the festival in their own way. It became an orgy of drinking that cost three men their lives. They died the blessed death of delirium tremens. Two died on Boxing Day but their burial was initially delayed till enough of the mourners had become sober again. They lay not far from the guest house in a corrugated iron hut. If anyone became too noisy the others would yell out: ”Shut up or you’ll wake the dead.” One of the most successful gold-diggers shouted the drinks and seemed to have set his mind on giving the dead men further company. But only one other man did him the favor.

On the broad veranda that surrounded the building people danced non stop till far into the night, in spite of the leaden, humidity laden heat, while the noise from the bar drowned out the jazz music from two competing gramophones.

Those who were sober were usually the women; but their banter vibrated with self pity. In a way, the old bush-man was right to redouble his swearing when somebody told him to take consideration on the women:

“Certainly not!” he shouted. “Swear them out! Drink them out! Disgust them as much as you can! They have no business to be here! Do you think I would let my old woman kick the bucket here? Stuff your ears with wax, you sluts, if you don’t want to listen to people when they get rid of their anger in curses!” And to make the point he planted himself on a table in close earshot of them and thundered down his sermon without repeating himself once.

A tall, reeling surveyor who wanted to dance took over from him. But no one was willing to partner somebody who could barely stay upright. So he went from one group to another with his tearful litany: he was a former officer, betrayed and sold out by the nastiness of life and of people.

Exhausted, he finally dropped into an armchair sobbing about his fate. Then suddenly he stood there in nothing but his shirt and about to divest himself of every last stitch of clothing. Somebody tore the loin cloth off a black serva so that man was now naked, wrapped it around the miserable frame of the tall fellow to make him decent and led him off, with gasps of “shocking” emanating from the insulted women and calls of “good night” from the amused men. In his clean white suit next morning the surveyor was once again a representative of the strong sex.

My cursing friend had a point: This is no place for women.

Glad to get out of this atmosphere Soltwedel and I took the pinnace to Buang as planned; there all our boys, having returned from Mapos, awaited us.

This little excursion without Zakharov was simply to perform an acid test on an extensive ore deposit we had discovered earlier. We could not do that at the time because bloody Naie had sat on Zakharov’s bag and broken the bottles. But I cannot give any information here about the direction or the results of this rushed two week excursion which was conducted in forced marches.

For Soltwedel and me it was like a pilgrimage of penance because all our Christmas indulgence had to be sweated out again. We had never done so much swearing, but it was, on the whole, gallows humor directed at ourselves.

In Mapos we met up with our injured porter again. In the meantime the tendons of his heel had healed completely and we now took him along, glad to have one of our best boys back with us.

When we finally arrived in Wau we felt fitter than ever in spite of all the exertion. Thanks to the nursing care and the injections we found Zakharov transformed and anxious to start the Mount Lawson expedition. Consequently we only stayed for the two days necessary to complete our preparations and then left Wau on 12 January, ready and eager to be off.

The provisions, intended to last us for six months and packed into sixty loads, are initially moved to Winnemah in three consecutive trips. But there we can only recruit a limited number of additional porters, not enough to transport everything on in one go. I therefore stay back in Winnemah with only two boys while my friends and the porters continue the trek to the village of Piaru which is five days away.

Piaru is situated on the dividing range between the former German territory of New Guinea and Australian Papua and is only two or three days march from Mount Lawson. Here we want to create a depot for our provisions, entrusting them to the care of the black mission.

So I wait in Winnemah for the return of the porters and in the meantime negotiate with the old chieftain who visits me in my camp every day. He claims that he unfortunately can’t let me have any more of his boys but I keep on showing him the lovely seductive trade goods and quietly hope that he will give in after all.

Finally, after ten days, my boys return with the replacement porters from Piaru and deliver a letter from Soltwedel that informs me that the long forced marches had not been good for Zakharov who was extremely impatient. Immediately after arriving in Piaru he had had to go to bed with a temperature of forty degrees. Soltwedel hoped it was only an acute attack of malaria and that the expedition into the mountains could begin as soon as the loads I was sending on had arrived.

I am therefore particularly glad that the old Winnemah chieftain becomes compliant that very same evening and promises twenty additional porters for the next day. I dismiss him with generous presents and prepare the loads that night.

But at first light no one turns up. So I send Beak and a companion to the village to pick up the promised porters. They come back to say that the village has been abandoned. All the pigs and the women have been removed; in the village itself only a few old men had stayed back and the young men were standing outside in the high kunai grass with their bows and arrows. They had given insolent retorts to his questions and on top of that had uttered threats and insults.

This turn of affairs is incomprehensible to me. Only yesterday we seemed to be good friends with the Winnemah people and the old Luluai couldn’t do enough, in view of the long coveted presents, to express his delight and friendship.

Fearing the worst, I go into the village myself with Beak and Zavil who carry the rifles; when Kanakas take pigs and women to safety they have hostilities in mind.

In the village everything is just as Beak said. When I leave the bamboo enclosure again after a short inspection I find myself in a wide semi-circle, surrounded by about a hundred warriors. Their bows are drawn and a particularly tall, pock-marked fellow imperiously calls out to me in Trepan English to stay and not come any closer, otherwise they would shoot.

Zavil sidles up to me closely; he is afraid; Beak, however, goes carefully backwards towards the entrance of the village and posts himself there with his rifle. He wants to prevent the master being surrounded from behind and attacked.

Everything now depends on action, that means on taking the initiative and bluffing which is usually effective with Kanakas. Quickly pulling my revolver out of my belt, I aim at the arrogant speaker who is about twenty meters away from me. While simultaneously approaching I roughly order him to put down his weapons, otherwise I would shoot.

This turn of affairs catches him out and he squirms indecisively but when the chieftain supports him with a hasty barrage of encouraging words, I jump towards him, rip the club from his hands and again order him to tell all the warriors to throw away their weapons. He is now shaking all over, trying to ward off the threatening revolver with his left hand and lets club and bow drop. He wants to encourage the others but is too paralyzed to find words and when I grab his arm the wide circle around us leaps backwards and disappears to find cover in the kunai.

I then take our prisoner as hostage towards our camp, followed from a safe distance by the warriors, with the old chieftain at their head calling after me that he wants to talk to me, that everything is “alright”.

But I have realized what they were up to originally. They wanted to ambush me and the two shoot boys in the village so that they could plunder the unprotected camp. I could no longer trust them and let the chief be told through his captured interpreter that he was to come to my camp and negotiate with me there; my generous presents had shown him that I was a friend of the village. And the old Luluai actually comes and sits down at my fire as though we were the best of friends.

Pleased by his conciliatory demeanor, I first let the old man discuss things with his interpreter. I can’t understand their conversation but their spitting and constant laughter eventually makes me wary and when I ask them their replies are evasive.

I now want to firmly make my point of view clear to the chief but his tall spokesman refuses to translate and tells me that the Luluai demands that I should leave the Winnemah area immediately and without the promised porters.

I now notice that the camp is surrounded by great numbers of armed warriors, safe behind bush and tree cover. Without much thought, I get up, grab hold of the old man and his interpreter with intentional roughness and lock them into a little hut that Naie had previously erected. Naie always builds huts for himself for something to do if he knows we are staying longer than one night.

Then I let Lump, who has been impatiently tugging at his rope for some time now, loose and just say to him: “Go on Lump, fetch!” - With furious barking he storms off into the nearest bushes. I can hear two or three cries of pain and then the trampling flight of more than a hundred marksmen.

Once the siege has been breached I send two of the fastest boys off through the bush on the side that points away from the village with instructions to run to Piaru to explain the delay to Soltwedel. I write that I will attempt to hire porters from neighboring tribes since I can no longer count on the Winnemah people.

At nightfall under the cover of darkness and with only one of the boys I secretly leave the camp that has by now been carefully barricaded and put under the command of Beak; I leave him the rifles and Lump, whom I tie up as a much feared sentinel outside the hut which holds our hostages. I have explained to Beak that I will make my way to Wau as quickly as possible and try to hire reliable boys there to defend the camp and help transport our goods to Piaru.

The splendid fellow only hesitates for a moment. He takes in the dangerous situation I am about to leave him in but he also realizes how much I trust him; he answers simply: “You can depend on me, master. I know that you will come back. Shame on Winnemah!”

I had hoped to see the police master in Wau to hand over the responsibility for dealing with the incident to him. But the guardian of the law was already out on another punitive expedition and was not expected back for weeks. I was told, however, that the Winnemah people were next on his list as they had notched up a number of offences.

It was a lucky coincidence that an Australian prospector was able to lend me his twenty porters. They are from the Sepik, big and strong and with a warlike disposition.

My worries about Beak and the camp increase when I suddenly see Lump come towards me. He is full of blood but not injured. I fear that there may have been an attack, that Lump has bitten his way out and come to get me. He is behaving as though he had gone crazy and I can hardly calm him down when I talk to him. So we get going at once.

Arrived at the kunai ridge I can see the camp from a distance and also that it is again surrounded in a wide semi-circle. At that point the twenty blacks from the Sepik burst into wild war-cries and stamp a grotesque dance as they walk along. The surprised beleaguerers are possessed of a wild panic that increases when Beak fires off a few thunderous shots into the air. They scatter and run towards the village with Lump in pursuit.

Once I am in the camp Beak reports that he and Zavil kept watch all night. The Winnemah people had crept around them the whole time. He had fired off warning shots a number of times and eventually let Lump loose. Lump had really laid into them but then not come back so they had begun to fear he might have been slain. When Beak hears from me that the dog followed me all the way to Wau he gratefully strokes the snout of the creature who is nuzzling up to me and says: “Good feller Lump, me think he savvy all too much!” Lump responds by licking his thigh.

The proximity of the noisy Sepik men and Lump as night watchman allow us to have an uninterrupted sleep and when we set out early next day Winnemah looks as peaceful in the sunlight as a European village on a Sunday morning.

I was later informed by the police master in Wau that the enmity with our camp had come about because I had denied an old Mary in the retinue of the chief, to whom I believed I had been more than generous, a colorful cotton loin cloth. At the time I did not know what an influential personality I was confronting and that her injured vanity would find no rest. Even among the Kanakas high politics seems to be determined from behind the scenes by the whims of the ladies.

From Winnemah you initially follow narrow mountain tracks that run along the ridge of the dividing range and then through endless forest; it is a fairytale forest where the heavy moss carpet swallows every sound. It often seemed as though you were hearing the animals of the forest themselves breathing, that is how silent and lonely it is. On the whole stretch to Piaru there are no Kanakas.

The forest is so unbelievably huge, so dense and limitless on every side, that anyone who lost his way here would never get out again. There are amazing tree- and ground orchids around which honey-suckers flit; giant yellow, black, blue and green butterflies, that live short lives between the trunks of the forest; birds of paradise whose bright regalia delight the eye till their hoarse cries fracture the harmony of their beauty; now and again a tree bear that looks us up and down with the huge eyes of a child; wild boars, cassowaries and small kangaroos: in all magnificent hunting grounds for the rifles of our shoot boys and Lump. A forest unending and deathly still, smelling of heavy black soil and crisscrossed by streams with colored pebbles and cold hard mountain water.

This is the kingdom of fairy-tale in which such beautiful but also such scary things happen, things about which you can remember reading at home as a child by the fireside while the snow outside was creating an unreal world; things which would turn out well in the end or where sadness was at least transfigured by a veil of beauty. Four days of wandering through a dream world.

And then we are suddenly woken with a shock in Piaru. There I discover my two comrades lying in a lightless, stuffy Kanaka hut, both seriously ill. Soltwedel has had a relapse of his dysentery and Zakharov has an abscess on the liver as a result of his earlier illness. Two days later I have to face the fact that I have dysentery too.

Now all three of us are sick, six long days march from Wau and without the necessary medicine. We had not been able to take any with us when we departed because stocks had run out.

My first thought is: leave as quickly as possible while we are still strong enough to walk. Just leave before it is too late. So I say to Soltwedel:

“ Now all three of us are sick. Zakharov seems to me to be very sick. We can’t help him. He has to be in the hands of a good doctor as soon as possible. We’ll have Zakharov carried: we two will manage to walk if the days are not too long. In this way it won’t take more than ten or twelve days.”

But my suggestion is met with icy silence. Zakharov groans and vomits up pure gall. Soltwedel turns on his sick-bed and I can read in his features the expression of impotent rage against fate.

“But then what do you intend to do?” I ask in alarm.

“Stay here and get well,” is Soltwedel’s brief answer.

“But we will never get well here. Just look at Zakharov.”

At that Soltwedel says:

“There are people who would prefer to die with the goal in front of them than turn back shortly before they have reached it.”

I am not sure whether Soltwedel is referring to himself or speaking for Zakharov. I say nothing and go outside.

An autumn wind is blowing. Deep down in the valley the Piaru foams white and winds its way through a maze of grass covered mountains and gorges. All around the horizon is limited by massive mountain ranges and in the distance you can see the beautiful symmetrical summit of Mount Lawson, the mountain of our hopes and longings.

From the hut I hear Zakharov’s tortured voice. Then Soltwedel joins me outside. He walks bent over with pain and we sit down on a tree trunk and silently survey our mountain, deep in thought.   

That is where the gold is: A lot of gold, maybe. The gold of the rich Lakekamu fields in Papua has to come from somewhere there. No one has yet found the source, but it is obvious that it has been washed down by the rivers from somewhere in the interior. Nobody has searched there yet. It is the chance of a life-time.

And then our eyes follow the course of the Piaru through the nearer mountains and slopes till the white river disappears in the chaos of the forests, collecting the streams which come from Mount Lawson and eventually end in Lakekamu.

Dreams, plans and possibilities chase each other in our heads. For a moment reality is forgotten but then there is Zakharov’s voice from out of the hut again. I give Soltwedel, whom I had forgotten beside me, a questioning glance. His face is as though broken, marked by extreme resignation. Without a word he gets up and is about to go. I take hold of his arm:

“What is your opinion of Zakharov?”

“I fear for his life.”

“We have to take him to Wau. He may yet be saved.”

“Do you know what it means to carry a stretcher through the bush for a fortnight on paths like those?”

“But we have to do something while there is still some hope left.”

“There is nothing we can do. We can’t let Zakharov go alone with the porters but we ourselves have dysentery and can’t possibly walk for ten or fourteen days. Apart from that, Zakharov doesn’t want to go. I have already spoken urgently with him. He doesn’t want to turn back a second time so close to the goal.”

“But he has to be persuaded or even forced; he doesn’t seem to realize how sick he is.”

“Try and persuade a person with the dogged determination of Zakharov,” says Soltwedel.

But that is not a solution. You can’t just resign yourself to your fate. So I try to persuade Soltwedel that we must not give in but take things into our own hands and act for Zakharov, whether he likes it or no, because he is too ill to make decisions for himself. To wait here simply because that is what our friend wants makes us responsible; only an operation can save him now.

At that point my comrade, so sick himself, puts his hand on my shoulder and with his voice barely able to hide his suffering he asks me almost in a tone of accusation:

“Do you think I just couldn’t care less? If I want to stay here it is only because I have to. I have lost too much blood; I am too exhausted; if I left now I would have to be carried myself, I wouldn’t be able to last the stretch. Believe me that twenty years in the jungle have taught me to know my own body. I have to stay; diet and care will see me through it. But you are right; Zakharov has to go. Don’t think that I don’t agree with you on that. - If I haven’t made any decisions yet it is only because I know that he hasn’t come to terms with giving up the prospect of continuing the expedition.”

I am unable to answer straight away and misunderstanding this, he continues:

“Try once more to persuade him. By forcing him, you would break his last strength for if you take him contrary to his own wishes he will arrive on the coast as a corpse.”

But my worried silence was directed at him for hadn’t he said: “I have to stay. With diet and care I will survive.”

So I anxiously ask him who is supposed to nurse him if I accompany Zakharov. But he brushes me off impatiently. He wasn’t talking about someone having to nurse him. He could look after himself. This wasn’t the first time. And he finishes off with brutal directness:

“If you and Zakharov go, I’ll have my peace and quiet and I’ll see to diet myself.”

He gets up and gives me a probing look. He wants to laugh but the pain distorts his features to a bitter smile and I am not sure whether it is due to the suffering that he wants to conceal or whether it is scornful suspiciousness directed at me.

Does he think that I am acting egotistically? Is he of the opinion that I only want to accompany Soltwedel because I am hoping thus to reach safety myself? Is he deriding me because I can even think of leaving him alone in this wilderness?

I feel a feverish rush through my head and call out his name as he crawls back into the hut, bent double with pain. He stops and gives me a wave with his left hand and my suspicious concern along with my irritable hyper-sensitivity now make me think that he is dismissing me as though he wanted to say: “Just go, if that’s what you want.”

As I am sitting there alone, miserably sad and helpless, staring at the hut in which two human beings I want to help at all costs while I still have the strength are lying and suffering, my dog pushes his head between my knees and his faithful eyes seem to ask me: “What’s up?” - The concern of this dumb creature restores hope, confidence and the determination to act in me.

One of the blacks tells me that the gold-field on the Waria River can be reached in only three days from here on reasonably good paths across the mountains. There a plane had once landed with engineers.

Should that actually be the case? Only three days? It is twice that distance to Wau and on the map the distance from Piaru to the Waria looks longer than to Wau. Still, the maps can’t be trusted and as the black missionary eventually confirms that the native is probably right, though he himself has not walked that path yet, my confidence that Zakharov can still be saved grows.

I hasten to the hut to give Soltwedel the happy news. Outside the sun is shining in a bright blue sky but in there it is dark and stuffy. In the dim light I can see that both the sick men are asleep. I am disappointed because my excitement can’t wait. But I sit down and as I listen to Zakharov’s regular breathing I am suddenly very happy that the poor man is at last getting some rest.

It has been days since he has spoken. In our presence he has forced himself to bear his suffering with silent reserve. But that he is suffering unbearable pain has been clear to us through his suppressed groans whenever he thought he was alone. You could tell that he was fighting a heroic battle for control so that, in view of our newly established friendship, no new hostile feelings would come up.

All of a sudden I can hear him talking and bend over him; he has a fever; his smiling expression is the echo of a beautiful dream.

Just as I am about to retire, I see that Soltwedel is sitting up and I go over to him and tell him the good news. He looks at me with amazement, lets me develop my plan and enthusiastically makes suggestions himself.

So we decide to send off runners to Wau to book a plane to Gareina on the Waria River for a set day so that Zakharov, once he has arrived, can immediately be flown to Salamaua. At the same time drugs for Soltwedel and me are to be procured and brought back by the returning runners.

At that point we become aware that we have been whispering too loudly and that Zakharov has woken up and is listening to us with an expression of anxious concern. Though worried that I could trigger his resistance, I tell him what needs to be said and conclude with the assurance that the injections he will be given in hospital in Salamaua will cure him in just a few weeks. “What do you think, Zakharov?” I ask as casually as I can.

But he is overtaken by a sudden spasm of pain, rears up and falls back onto his pillow with a muffled cry. Soltwedel and I creep out so that he knows he is by himself and without witnesses to his terrible torture. But he calls us back and asks hastily: “Only three days? - Do you think we can make it?”

At long last he has actually given in. I can’t hold back anymore and taking hold of his wasted hands, I describe every aspect of the plan to him and feel wonderfully reassured when I feel him squeezing my hands in return.

That night Soltwedel writes the required letters. We book the plane for eight days from now, which is the tenth of February. The boys are to set out at first light and cover the six day route in three or four days, running all the way, so as to give the pilot time to prepare for the flight.

Zavil, Lumbuk and Kapul volunteer and I give them careful instructions which they each have to repeat to me. I tell them that they are to pass Winnemah at night and if possible by a detour. They are only to use the rifle in an extreme emergency. They know what is at stake and that they can only allow themselves one day of rest in Wau because they have to bring back the injections Soltwedel needs in a minimum of time.

They are so impressed by the importance of their mission, particularly Zavil who likes to draw attention to himself, they can hardly wait for daybreak to arrive. Then sitting on my log in front of the hut I can follow their progress for another hour before they disappear in the curve of the river: three black dots. I know that the life and health of both my friends, perhaps even my own survival, rests in their hands.

Zakharov and I intend to set our two days later; that gives us all of six days to reach the plane booked for Gareina, for I tell myself that it is sensible to calculate twice the time the natives think will be needed for the journey.

On Wednesday morning we say our farewells to Soltwedel. I had constructed a light stretcher from Zakharov’s camp bed to be carried by four boys. We lift Zakharov, who is no longer able to raise himself, onto it.

“Good-bye Zakharov, and good recovery,” says Soltwedel. “We’ll meet again in Salamaua.”

“Maybe; who knows? Farewell,” Zakharov replies. 

 I squeeze Soltwedel’s hands but his eyes seem to avoid me and again I worry that he doesn’t trust me. I search for words to reassure him and in my concern about having to leave him here I promise what is almost impossible, namely to return immediately once I have delivered Zakharov. An impatient, dismissive smile is the response.

“Nonsense, my friend. You can hardly walk yourself as it is. The long marches will soon have you exhausted. You don’t know yet what dysentery means. Look after yourself and don’t worry about me.”

Then the procession starts moving. Lump who is glad to be out and about again constantly gets between the legs of the porters till a sharp word from me puts him in his place.

On the first rise I stop to look back and see Soltwedel sitting on our log, wearily resting his head on his hand. I wave to him and am filled with joy when he waves back a number of times in greeting. Then he gets up and goes into the hut.

At first the path leads up along the grassy slopes and is quite broad and comfortable; but soon it turns into a narrow forest trail. It is that same huge fairy-tale forest of the dividing range, just a small portion of its limitlessness, the forest of the interior of New Guinea that is so dark, so hushed, that hides so many undiscovered secrets, that you are drawn to it again and again but also spooked by its eeriness and vastness, its impenetrability.

By now there always have to be three boys in front to broaden the path with machetes and axes. We then walk as through a round green vault; only when we come to water does its density diminish allowing us to see the blue sky overhead.

Although we walk till dusk I estimate that we have not even completed a half day’s march.

That night Zakharov is very feverish and hallucinates in Russian. I can only understand the occasional word and it is often hard to make out whether he is dreaming or awake and uttering requests. So I hardly sleep, allowing myself to be roused constantly and spend the night in a dozy state between tiredness and worry because I am aware that my friend is getting worse.

On the march next morning, when I tell the porters not to hurry too much so as not to bump the sick man about too much on the rough paths, Zakharov says as I bend over him:

“It is a race. There is another racing us who will win.”

I try to talk him out of this idea but know, of course, only too well: death is competing with us.

I have a terrible feeling of light-headedness. On one occasion I go ahead and lie down in the moss beside a stream: To stretch out just once for a short rest. The calls of the porters behind me rouse me and reawaken the realization of a dreadful reality. But this reality seems quite unreal. Dreams can often appear more vivid than the waking world.

By now it is the third day we have walked through sheer interminable forests; rising and going downwards; airy crowns here, moist mossy gorges there; and nothing but forest.

Towards midday the view becomes more open and climbing a rock with great difficulty I can see that there is now no new mountain in front of us, that the way goes down through a deep forested valley. We must at last have reached the dividing range between Papua and northern New Guinea. Gelepo, the first village between Piaru and Gareina, which according to the Kanakas we were to come to after only a day’s march, can’t be far away now.

I send Naie on ahead to investigate because he thinks he can smell fire; he is to see if he can find the village. After an hour the little fellow comes back, holding a Kanaka by the hand. In all my life I have never seen such an enormous human being. He looks like one of the giants from fairy-tales who has half a dozen naughty children for breakfast. His get up shows me that he is from the Waria valley.

With a grin a meter wide and a terrible “Uuaah” he greets me and in the manner of mission Kanakas gives me a hearty handshake that almost splinters my bones. I can just prevent him expressing his sympathy to Zakharov in a similar manner. Then he shows us the way and an hour later he takes us to a fire in a clearing where twenty Gelepo boys are warming themselves.

The devil only knows how the news could precede us, but the entire Waria valley is already informed that a sick white master is being carried to Gareina; in response the black missionaries have sent these boys ahead to broaden the path for the stretcher. They have managed to do that quite well and now our progress is quicker and smoother. But the porters are exhausted; on top of that we are surprised by a heavy shower of rain and so we stop early and set up camp for the night under the dense protective shelter of the forest.

Not till the afternoon of the following day, four days after leaving Piaru, does our procession find the village which, according to the estimates of the Kanakas, we were supposed to reach on the evening of the first day.

We take Zakharov, who has been asleep with exhaustion for the past hours, to a hut and I then enquire about the state of the paths ahead and how far it is to Gareina. Again and again I am told: “If you walk quickly, two days.”

That means that we will need at least another three or four days. We will arrive in Gareina two whole days too late to reach the plane.

So I make the decision to immediately send a runner ahead to inform the Pilot that we will be late; if he should not be able to wait till then, he is to return three days later, namely on February 12.

Mock, our best runner, volunteers; he has always liked being given special tasks. For a small present, one of the Gelepo blacks will hand him over to the chieftain of the next village who will then provide him with a companion to Gareina.

I make it clear to Mock what this is all about. He must think only of the dangerously ill master and not of his legs and run as fast as he can so as not to miss the plane. He should also not be afraid of the natives who are all from the mission and will not hurt him.

Before evening he sets out to run through the moon-lit night with his companion. I am extremely worried that he could miss the pilot all the same but also hope that the Gareina people will already be informed of our coming through the news service of the bush people that is so incomprehensible to us whites.

Zakharov has not regained consciousness yet and hallucinates in Russian until far into the night. Then he grows quiet, wakes up and asks me, in view of the hut he is in, whether this is Gareina and whether the plane has arrived yet. I have to confess the truth to him and explain what has happened, also tell him that I have sent Mock ahead with the message for the pilot.

“Another three days. How can I survive that?”

I can see terrible despair on his face that, in the light of the lantern, already has the hollow expression of death.

“Let’s get off again. We have to be quick, quick!” he pleads with me and all I can tell him is that it is night and the porters are completely exhausted.

I wake the boys when it is still dark and get everything ready. At first light we set out. Zakharov himself encourages the porters to walk so quickly with their load that, in spite of my exertions, I can barely keep up. Around lunch-time we finally arrive in a village and I have to engage relief porters since my own boys are completely exhausted.

With replacements, we can go at a faster pace but the village boys, not used to this work, bump the stretcher up and down as they run; I can no longer keep up. I call out desperately but they do not hear me. Eventually I send Lump after them who is happy to oblige and in his over-enthusiasm snaps at their legs. They throw the stretcher down and climb up the nearest trees.

That wakes Zakharov out of his daze and standing in front of him I now realize that all is in vain. In a fading voice he begs me to call a halt. It was beautiful here, he says; this was where he wanted to die; it couldn’t be long now. Then he is again wracked by pain and I can see how severe his suffering is. He turns away his head so I can’t see him and I think he is crying. Then he looks at me with completely clear but very deep-set eyes and says:

“What miserable creatures we are. So this is the end. I would not have wished to live for this price.”

I repeatedly try to encourage him not to lose hope and to try to persevere but he shrugs me off apathetically: “I can’t any more.”

The pain has complete control of him so I give him a second dose of Chlorodine because of the Morphium it contains. It does relieve him and he goes to sleep. But I don’t have the courage to take him further today and therefore prepare everything for the night.

The sun was not down before I was fast asleep under the sail of the tent, the first long sleep for many days. But around midnight Zakharov’s voice wakes me: “Quick, quick! On, on!”

He thinks that the moon-shine is daylight and so as not to disappoint him when he seemed to have regained hope, I break camp immediately. But we only make slow headway for even though it is light around us, feet have to feel their way on the darker ground of the paths with their tangles of roots.

At last the day dawns. A wonderful, invigorating freshness fills the air and the rays of morning sun are so replete with glowing energy and there are so many joyous voices of creatures coming from the bushes that I can’t help but pick myself up and have the will and the faith that it can and must work.

 The track now leads right down to the Waria which we have to cross on a strong log, sixty foot above the river. I turn away when I see the boys balancing across with the stretcher. One false step and they would all be lost along with Zakharov. But with natural confidence they walk over the giddy height on the narrow curve of the trunk. In the state I am in, I can no longer manage it by myself, so Beak and one of the Gelepo boys guide me across safely.

With our hopes raised by Zakharov’s own positivity, we walk non-stop all day and arrive at the village of Wapi by evening. It is situated in dense forest and is enclosed with high, strong bamboo and pole fences, like a little fortress. The entrance is blocked with a twelve foot high barrier which you have to climb over.

Since it is impossible to get the stretcher across, I climb the barrier with Beak’s support, carry the sick man into the village myself and bed him in the clean hut of the black missionary. Zakharov, once so portly and heavy, is now light as a child. His limbs are only skin and bones. The formerly full and round face is narrow and sunken now and the eyes that used to be so bright and defiant are now deep in their hollows and have a tired and fading glow.

But he is still conscious and, noticing the pleasant seclusion of the village, he says to me:

“How beautiful this all is. Nature reconciles again and again.”

He would like to stay here and fade away in the security of this sanctuary. But when I encourage him saying that life and his future are still waiting for him, he turns to me with a kindly smile: ”My friend, you would deserve that to be the case. Act according to your plan.”

Happy at his grateful confidence I tell him that now things would go well; we were close to the goal; we could manage it in two days as the tracks were now becoming more navigable but there was no point in rushing; I had sent Mock to book the plane for the twelfth of February; so we had three full days left and could now carry him more carefully and look after him better. He nods gratefully.

I pause. Melodies reach our ear. I step outside the hut. The whole village has assembled around it. Men, women and children are singing their evening devotions. Old Waria tunes with pious texts. Melancholy tunes sung in three or four voices. Above all of them the high falsettos of the boys’ voices float almost shrill against the heavy bases of the men. Then prayers are murmured and the chieftain tells me that they are praying for the sick master. When I return to the hut there is an expression of serene joy on Zakharov’s face and he asks me to have the chorale sung once more. I inform the chief who claps his hands to interrupt the murmuring of prayer. Then they sing again and I sit down at the bed of my friend who seems to have forgotten his pain. There is an expression of deep happiness on his face and he talks to me of his wife. But soon his words become quieter and subside to a mumble. He is asleep.

In the meantime night has fallen and a cold wind soughs through the crowns of the trees. Suddenly Beak appears in front of me and says hastily and briefly:

“Master you come!”

 Noticing how perturbed he is, I ask him what has happened; but he just replies:

“Master, you come look.”

We walk through the dark village, climb past the guards and over the barrier and go to the boys’ fire. They are squatting around it in silence and none of them look up when I come.

Beak points to a figure cowering all alone on the side and says:

“Now the white master has to die. Shame upon Mapos. You beat him, Master.”

Now I can recognize Mock, Mock the runner whom I sent ahead to Gareina with that urgent message for the pilot. I am stunned for now all seems lost. The blood rushes to my head and fury grips at my self-control.

I pull him up and yell at him:

“Speak, you dog.”

But Mock can’t speak for fear and shame. He is trembling all over. So Beak gives the explanation: Mock had almost reached his destination when foreign Kanakas started shouting incomprehensible words at him as he ran past. He suddenly felt a terrible fear that they wanted to catch him and then turned on his heel and ran back The native accompanying him had run back too; he reported that he had tried all he could to call out to Mock to persuade him either to go back to Gareina or to give him the letter. But he had never been able to catch up to Mock; Mock had just run and run till they both recognized the camp of the master and arrived here one after the other.

That is typical of the psychosis of the natives in times of fear. A kind of panic will suddenly overtake their psyche; they no longer think rationally; fear clings to their backs and whips them on; they run as though possessed and nothing can stop them.

My fury knows no bounds. The consequences pass through my mind. If the plane arrives now, as initially requested, and we are not there it will fly off again and who knows when and if it will ever return. And all this because a stupid black fears for his miserable self. I could throttle the fellow.

Beak can see my anger and hands me the stick with the words: “Shame upon Mapos. All of us Mapos boys are ashamed. I would kill him, Master, so you hit him yourself.”

But Mock cries out. He cries like an animal and begs me, pleads with me not to beat him; he will fix things up; he will run, run, run and hold onto the plane. The sick master must not die.

Stick in hand, I only now realize how weak I am myself with my repressed illness; I can hardly stay upright and when I try to swing the stick it falls from my shaking hand with its own weight. Mock has turned around and runs off into the dark night. “I’ll fix it up, Master!” he calls back.

Beak has leaped after him, though without reaching him; but he has hurled a hundred curses at him that will cling to his back on the way to Gareina.

Exhausted, I sit down by the fire in the circle of my boys. You can tell how humiliated they feel through Mock’s cowardice. None of them dares say anything, particularly as Beak repeats again and again: “Shame upon Mapos. But believe me, Master, Mock will run now, all night and all day. He will fix it up, believe me, Master.” 

I get up. I am freezing in my thin shirt; the icy cold wind whistles and blows sparks from the fire into the black night. - I nod at Beak and then say with great seriousness so that they can all understand:

“Great, great shame upon Mapos.”

Beak calls after me: “Too true, Master, too true.”

I enter the house and throw myself onto the bed for I am completely exhausted. But I can not sleep. Outside the wind is soughing eerily in the high crowns of the jungle trees. I am expecting the light grass roof of our house to blow away at any moment.

The fire from the camp of our boys throws a restless gleam into our room. Every now and again I can see Zakharov’s face as it lights up white in the glow. He is asleep but his lips are constantly murmuring incomprehensible words.

I have to think of Mock. In my mind’s eye I can see his naked black form racing along narrow tracks through this stormy night, beset by his fear of the night and of the uncanny voices of the wind. I can see him startle in terror when the storm throws dry branches from the tree-tops to the ground. But he runs, runs, runs, possessed of one thought only: he must get there. Fear begins to creep into my own heart; in my dream I run with Mock, through the dark night, always just behind him without ever being able to catch him up.

In the morning the devotional songs of the Wapi villagers wake us again. The chief has ordered an opening to be broken through the barricade so that we can push the sick master through more comfortably on his stretcher. Eight particularly strong Wapi boys accompany us all day and every two hundred meters they take over from the porters.

The thick bushy forest is now behind us. The Waria valley is wide and level and our path leads us through grass that is only rarely interspersed with rough stony patches. We make fast progress, so fast that I, accompanied by Lump and Naie, can not keep up and arrive in the village of Timanigota much later, after a hike of eleven hours.

Under Beak’s direction the boys have got everything ready in the camp and bedded Zakharov comfortably in a hut; he had been half asleep for the duration trip and had not uttered any more wishes.

Here I meet another white man, a New Zealander who is on his way to the Ono River to have a look at some gold concessions there. He met Mock not far from Gareina and had barely been able to stop him in his run. Mock had given him some fragments of information from which he could only gather that a seriously ill white man was being carried to Gareina. He therefore set out immediately to meet us. He saw Zakharov when he arrived but he was asleep and still is deeply unconscious. The New Zealander too is of the opinion that only an immediate operation could perhaps help him; he fears, however, that an infection of the walls of the chest could already have set in.

From him I also hear that Boom, my friend Helmut Baum, has landed in Morobe and should arrive in Gareina in a few days. The man admits that he has only heard it from the blacks in Gareina and doesn’t understand how news like that could get there so quickly. But I know that the rumors that circulate among the natives are more reliable than the daily news the press puts out at home; I believe him and am gripped by a wild hope without quite knowing why.

Zakharov does not regain consciousness during the night but because I am aware that he is suffering terribly I apply cold poultices every half hour which give him relief. Naie is my faithful helper and stays by his side. Every time the sick man has problems with his breathing again, Naie throws himself onto me with an urgency that is by no means gentle; I am to help. We have to sit Zakharov up dozens of times during the night. When he finally falls into a quiet sleep in the morning Naie asks me, as he hands me my tea: “The poor master must be your brother, Master?” It is not an inquisitive question but one that shows real sympathy:

“Yes Naie, he is my brother.”

Naie just replies: “I don’t have a brother.”

It sounds terribly sad, like an admission of great poverty.

In the morning we set out for the eighth time for the last day of our torturous trip. On today’s march I stay close to the stretcher and, to the extent that this is possible, give him relief from the heat. For in this broad river valley the sun burns down with incredible strength and on the shade-less grassy steppes you are completely at its mercy.

Suddenly Naie calls out: “Master, master, me hear him ballus!” But however much we strain our ears, we hear nothing. Naie, however, is insistent.

There! Isn’t that like the soft hum of a plane, far, far away. We stop for a quarter of an hour and listen but can no longer hear anything. It was probably a giant beetle or just imagination.

Around two o’clock we reach the end of a huge completely level stretch of grass and the Kanakas point to a tiny dot, a house at the other end of the plain.

“House belong Master Boom.”

It is the house that Baum built for himself when he was first prospecting on the upper Waria.

At last the goal can be seen with the naked eye, at last, at last! And my friend is still alive.

I am overcome with joy and a wonderful feeling of peace enters my heart. Now we are safe! Now everything will work out. - Or will it?

Once in Gareina, we move into Baum’s house. The airfield where a plane once landed is directly beside it. There a hundred kanakas, men, women and children, are working with machetes to clear it. The grass is over a meter high so a landing in it would inevitably be a disaster. The chieftain of Gareina has organized the work on his own initiative.

But is our plane still going to come? Has something happened to it on the way? Or did our boys not get through to the Wau? Could the Winnemah Kanakas has stopped them or attacked them? I am almost beginning to fear the latter.

In the evening a group of natives from a village half a day’s distance down the Waria arrive and also bring the news that Baum is already on his way here. I immediately write him a letter and the chieftain of Gareina makes a messenger available who is to run off next morning.

I have my deck-chair put out in front of the house. Inside it is musty and confined. Outside the sun is setting behind the mountains in spectacular colors. I look across the wide plain at silhouette upon silhouette of mountain ranges like the backdrop for a play.

Then night falls, quickly and without transition and where only moments ago there were the colors of the sunset to admire, you now look out at a sea of stars.

With the night the indigenous nightingales awaken. Their sweet melancholy song can be heard in every direction. They are sitting on the little clusters of trees and bushes around the house. Otherwise it is eerily quiet. The Waria can be heard in the far distance. It does not sound like the rushing of a river but like the distant tinkling of bells.    

Then I hear Zakharov’s voice and go in to see him. He is groaning in his fever and struggling for air. I sit him up in bed. It gives him some relief but he doesn’t regain consciousness. Carefully, I put him down again. Then everything is quiet once more and the noises of the night hold my attention again and fill my soul with an unbearable sadness and nostalgia.

I can’t get to sleep. All my senses seem to be particularly acute and I stay sitting in the chair next to Zakharov’s bed till sleep finally overtakes me around morning.

At dawn the Kanakas come back to extend the airfield but I send them away again. There is no longer any point. Something must have gone wrong. If need be, one can land on the field as it is.

I have given up hope that a plane will come. I have given up hope for Zakharov too. Even though he is now sleeping peacefully his breathing comes in short gasps. He did not regained consciousness during the night.

Naie calls me to say that the Master is awake now. I go to him but he is not fully conscious.

“Has my wife arrived?”

“No,” I reply, quickly collecting myself, “but she is waiting for you in Rabaul.”

“If that is the case, all will be well.”

Then he is asleep again and I realize he is no longer in pain. I stay beside him. Perhaps he will come to and want to say something.

Two hours later he raises himself up with the last of his strength as though suffering a spasm, gazes at me with a long, silent look as though he did want to say something more and then falls across the bed before I can jump up.

My friend has passed away.  

That was on the morning of February the thirteenth. I buried him that evening. In this hot humid climate that always has to be done quickly. We couldn’t build him a coffin. Like a soldier, we wrapped him in his coat and sewed him into a tarpaulin.

Our twelve boys, the entire male population of Gareina, and I accompany him on his last journey. The procession goes through the high grass to the spot at the edge of the jungle that I have chosen as his last resting place. - By the time the sun set the cross had been erected on the new grave mound.

A long, sleepless night. - Baum comes in the morning. He already knows what has happened; he has walked for the entire night. - We stay together till the next day. Then he sets out for Piaru to check on Soltwedel. By doing so he relieves me of my promise to go back myself. I would not be able to do so anyway. He insists that I stay in Gareina till he comes back with Soltwedel.

But less than two hours after he has left we hear a plane. We light fires on the landing strip as signals. The plane circles above us a few times and then lands. Its progress is halted by the high grass. The pilot is Shoppee who had flown me to Salamaua on that earlier occasion. He is completely shattered that he has come too late. He had tried to get through to Gareina four times but had had to turn back on each occasion.

I send the two boys who stayed with me after Baum to inform him that I am going to fly to Salamaua and that Shoppee will be back in Gareina in ten days to pick Soltwedel up. He is to bring him down here.

Then I drum up the Kanakas again to lengthen the runway for the start. They work all day. But at night heavy storm clouds come up. The way to Salamaua is blocked. We will have to wait here for the night. – It brings heavy rain and storm. The plane rattles at its fastenings. A restless night in which few words are exchanged.

Towards morning the rain stops. We warm up the motor as it starts to dawn and at first light we take off. The runway is just long enough.

In the village everyone was still asleep. The only person who came to see us off was Naie. He stood all alone on the vast field, his eyes full of tears. The chief promised me to look after him till Baum comes back. Lump has gone to Baum; I gave him the dog. Baum had always really wanted him.

We fly along the valley of the Waria and then across the dividing range to Wau where we have a stopover because of engine trouble.

On the way I saw our mountain for the last time, rising up above the chaos of the mountain ranges, majestically and victoriously. So far no white man has set foot on it.

There also, in one of those valleys, lies Soltwedel with his illness. He is as yet unaware of all that has happened. But in two or three days Baum will be with him.

After a short stay in Wau we fly on to Salamaua and I go straight to hospital.

Baum reached Soltwedel who had received the drugs brought by the boys when they returned from Wau. He was able to treat himself and not long afterwards walk out on the six or seven day hike to Wau. Baum then went back to the Waria.

Around about the time when I had more or less recovered due to the medical treatment I received in Salamaua Soltwedel finally arrived there too.

On account of the death of Zakharov and our impaired state of health the Rabaul Syndicate instructed us to abandon the expedition. Thereupon Baum took over our boys for his own work on the Waria, along with all our provisions. - The venture was over.

POSTSCRIPT

A few weeks later I am again sitting on the veranda of the guest house in Salamaua with Soltwedel, at the same place where the three of us made such hopeful plans ten months ago.

In the bar a rumor about new discoveries of gold is circulating. Everyone is restive. Gold fever has taken hold of us all again.

“Shouldn’t we give it another go together,” asks Soltwedel.

I find it hard to answer him. I am at odds with myself.

Soltwedel notices my indecision and as though he is dragging thoughts up from deep down, he says:

“It is not really fair that I make this suggestion to you. You can still get away. Go to Australia; leave this country while you are still able to.”

“And you,” I ask, ”are you going to come along?”

With a tired, resigned look he gazes at me for quite a while: “I can’t leave anymore. People like us who have been out here for so long can no longer find our feet in ‘civilization’. Unfortunately I am under the spell of this country. But I won’t go back to the bush right away. I’ll accompany you to Rabaul. The steamer leaves in another three days.”

I am aware that it is difficult for my friend to deny his own wishes and not put pressure on me and as though he had read my thoughts he gets up and says with a laugh:

“Come. The only thing that will cure fever is brandy. We are both suffering from gold fever again. Let’s drown it with grog.”

That day everybody thought we were celebrating a major discovery not realizing that we were actually saying farewell to the gold.

Three days later a small steamer carries us out into the South Seas, the same one I had boarded in Australia with such high hopes. More than three years have passed since then. Now I am going back to Sydney.

Thoughts storm through my head, images of the experiences I have had rise up: three men under a tent; a solitary white cross on the edge of the jungle; bell-like laughter ringing out; sad, strange songs; naked black figures and gentle faithful eyes; a cold, soft snout pushing down into my hand, ...

Now my mountains with their jungles disappear in the distance and a terrible sense of pain goes through me:

All that has to be left behind: all that and the unencumbered life of the past three years.

So what did you end up finding and what are you taking home?

Unforgettable experiences in joy and sorrow, - memories - my gold.

The End

* Buang – Bumung; Lega – Wagau; Piaru – Biaru; Gelepo – Gerepo; Wapi – Bapi; Mount Lawson – Mount Nelson (11775m) ; Gareina -  Garaina