The Carriers Had Had Nothing To Eat Since The Day Before, And Poor Old Giwi, The Chief, Squeezed His Stomach To Show How Empty He Was, But Still Managed To Giggle In His Usual Childish Fashion.

They brought with them two runaway carriers who had come from the Kumusi district, where many of the miners start inland for the Yodda Valley (the gold mining centre).

They had travelled for five days along the coast, and had hardly eaten anything. They had avoided all villages EN ROUTE, otherwise they themselves would undoubtedly have furnished food for others, though there was little enough meat on them. There were many different tribes in this neighbourhood, and Monckton was far from satisfied as to the safety of our camp if we were attacked. We sent off a canoe with Okeina men up the river to get provisions from the Baruga tribe who had attacked Monckton the previous year, and they now professed friendship to the government. The Okeinas were friendly with them, but as they paddled away in the darkness Monckton shouted out after them to give him warning when they were coming back with the Baruga people, and they shouted back what was the Okeina equivalent for "You bet we will."

We pitched our mosquito nets under a rough shelter of palm leaves, and I lay awake for some time watching the light of countless fire-flies and beetles which flashed around me in the darkness, while curious cries of nocturnal birds on the forest-clad banks and mangroves from time to time broke the stillness of the tropical night, and followed me into the land of dreams, from which I was rudely awakened early the next morning by clouds of small sandflies, which my mosquito net had failed to keep out.

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