"By Aeroplane to Pygmyland" Accounts of the 1926 Smithsonian-Dutch Expedition to New Guinea

Interpretive Essays

Browse Photos and Film

Expedition Source Material

About this Project

expedition source material

Journal of Matthew Stirling
Select a Date:
Select a location/subject:
Current Date and Location/Subject:  

November 6, 1926 : Explorators Camp/Tombe Village ; Overland Trail/Upper Rouffaer/Nogullo River ; Rouffaer River


November 6

———————
"The trail has been fixed up a lot by the Dyaks since I first went up."
———————

Dick, Stan and I left this morning on the return trip with about 25 Dyaks and convicts. Le Roux and Korteman will probably leave tomorrow. It has been rather a hard day. Stanley has [a] fever and was taken with a chill about an hour after we left camp. He has been barely able to stagger along and has been half delirious part of the time. In addition, two of the Dyaks fell from the trail during the day. One was badly cut in 8 or 10 places from head to foot and had to be bandaged up like a mummy. The other hurt his foot and can only walk slowly. The trail has been fixed up a lot by the Dyaks since I first went up. Along the sides of the cliffs and down the bad places, they have laid logs and made ladders and hand holds and in many other places strung lines of rattan. The trail is not nearly so dangerous now but is bad enough at that. We made camp by the little river where we saw the first Papuan hut on the way up. Fortunately the river is very low now, which makes those parts of the trail which follow the rocks along the water's edge comparatively easy to follow. {p. 303}




CreditsPermissionsMore Expeditions & Voyages