Saturday
August 14
1926

It was another cloudy morning. We had our usual breakfast of rice with java goula [sic, = gula (Malay, “sugar”)], milk and coffee after which I dug into my writing. Yesterday I finished 15 single spaced sheets (seven carbons) of Doc’s diary to send back. Hope to finish it today together with other necessary correspondence. Dick went hunting and returned with a couple of green and red parrots. His pigeons of last evening made good eating. The transport to Head Camp and possibly that from Batavia Camp should arrive today or tomorrow. Just before noon someone spotted two Papuan prows downstream poling slowly up the river. They had not as yet passed the mouth of the small river and the glasses showed {F3.27} that they had a load of bananas in one of the canoes. There were three men in one and two in the other. They made slow progress against the stream and it was some time before they got opposite camp. They are evidently from down river for we saw smoke rising from the jungle down in that direction. We shouted to them and they shouted back but were afraid to come over. It is evident that they want to trade their bananas but cannot muster up enough courage to come to the camp for fear of shooting. We have nothing but the small prows. I asked the sergeant if he and Dot and I could get in the motor boat with a couple of soldiers and go across and trade with them to show them we were friendly but he said he had strict orders from Captain Posthumus that the motor boat was not to be used under any circumstances. I asked him if we went in the small prow and turned over in the middle of the river, if it would be possible for him to send the motor boat to our rescue. He didn’t know exactly but said orders were orders and that he as a sergeant had to live up to them. Dot had the same orders. I suppose if we did drift down the river and were unable to come back they would live up to their “orders”. That is tipical [sic] of the cooperation we are receiving. The Papuans stayed opposite all afternoon and we shouted back and forth and tried to encourage them to come over without results. They built a fire and evidently had their noon day meal there. Dick went hunting in the afternoon and returned and reported that the woods above camp were filled with them. He could hear them cutting down sago palms all around him while he hunted. It was impossible to go across in one small prow for they are not very stable at best and it is a long distance. One Dyak is also sick so we couldn’t take two of them with only one Dyak. It would appear, however, that they are getting short of food and are coming out from their little river hiding place[,] their braveness being attributed to our recent trip up the little river having proven in a way to them that we are friendly. It was not enough though to give them enough {F3.28} courage to come over to our camp where they were fired upon some weeks ago. The river has fallen considerably having dropped four or five feet during the night and now we have a bank of six or seven feet in contrast to a few days ago when all the camp was part of the river. We could plainly see from the way the soldiers acted today why they found it necessary to shoot. It is no wonder for they yell and howl in such a manner that would scare a civilized person to death if he were approaching this camp. It would be a fine thing to re-establish friendly relations with these people and I am sure we could have accomplished this if we had the motor boat to go over to the opposite shore. The prow sedicket [sic, = prau sedikit (Malay, “little boat”)] will hold two persons but with one it is hard to keep upright. The Papuans stayed over there for most of the afternoon and then returned down the river.