e opposite bank.

After supper we interviewed the prisoners, and we now learned the
real sequel to our last visit and what a narrow escape we had that
night from being all massacred. It appeared that our fighting during
the daytime astonished them much, as they could not understand how we
could kill at such a distance, rifles being quite new to them. Our
fame soon reached a large village much further on, and they said
to the Dobodura people: "Ye are all cowards; we will show you that
we can destroy these strange people." They started off that night
and surrounding our camp on all sides, crept up for a rush; but,
luckily for us, our sentries saw some of them and fired. The first
shot killed one of them, and others were hit. Then came the blaze of
many rifles. This terrified them and they fled. The horrible noise of
the rifles and the flashes of fire in the darkness astonished them, but
what made them depart for good was seeing one of their men fall at the
first shot. It was a very lucky shot, and it probably saved our lives
that night. When asked why they raided the Notus, the prisoners said
that they were friends until two years ago, when they quarrelled, and
had been constantly fighting since. In particular they now blamed the
Notus for the late drought, which they said was due to their sorcery,
the result being that they were forced to live on sago alone, and to
vary this diet were compelled to get human meat.

I was the only one out of five white men not down with fever, but I
was glad that we passed a quiet night, with no attack on the camp. In
the morning one of our carriers, who ventured less than fifty yards
beyond the barrier, received a spear through his left arm and another
through his side, and though I am almost afraid to relate it for
fear of being thought guilty of exaggeration, the man plucked the
spear out of his side in a moment, and, hurling it back, killed his
opponent. I ventured outside and proved the truth of the man's story,
by finding the Dobodura man transfixed with his own spear. Both our
man's wounds were bad ones, but he did not seem to mind them at all,
and was for some time surrounded by a crowd of admiring natives.

We started off early in search of a large village of which a prisoner
told us, but had not gone far when a man jumped out of the long grass
and threw a spear at one of our carriers, only a few paces in front
of me. Fortunately he missed him, but only by a few inches. As he
w