‘‘ GOOD-BYE TIDE WE MEET AGAIN IN LONDON.”
Drawn by W. H. Margetson, from a sketch by Herbert Ward.
To face page 305.
and dangerous,' and I was very ill, the fever still
clinging to me ; and Frank persuaded me to go.back to
Pinungah, telling me he would return again in a few
days. I took an affectionate leave of him, and warned
him to be careful of his head, reminding him that he
was going close to the tribe who massacred and decapitated
poor Witti. ‘ Keep your powder dry,’ I said*
He replied with a smile that he would be all right, and
so we parted. I started on my homeward journey.
Things went smoothly with me till we approached the
biggest of the rapids, which had. a fall of about seven
feet, and there my boat came to grief, and I had a
narrow escape of being drowned, but got back eventually
to Raigson house and slept th e re ; the next dav,
in one of his canoes, and with Usof’s help as navigator,
reached Pinungah once more, and was laid up once
more, my immersion in the river proving an additional
obstruction to my recovery.
“ Frank’s mission among the Tungara people was I
think in furtherance of his search for minerals. On
this subject, however, he was reticent, not evidently
caring to talk about his discoveries or his hopes, in
that direction, though he once or twice mentioned
the tremendous difficulties in the way of exploration
that he encountered in the dense jungle, the
constant rains, and the swollen rivers. He brought
from the Tungura people a collection of strange,
diminutive opium pipes, with red stems and quaint
carvings, the work of the Tungara men; to me one of
the greatest curiosities was a ‘ peluru sumpitan,’ or
poisoned arrow case, used by the very tribe of Subluts
that murdered and beheaded Witti.
“ Unfortunately on his return to me one of his go