A row of a few yards brought us to a primitive staging, built on piles, supporting a floating platform of logs, very slippery with the slime left by the river at high tide. These treacherous logs were far enough apart to permit of a man’s slipping easily between them into the unsavoury stream. Unsavoury indeed it was, for the waters of the Merauke are blue with a greasy alluvial deposit, closely resembling the “blue slipper” so well known to geologists in the Isle of Wight. The Dutch Settlement lay close to the landing-stage. It presented a rough collection of houses and barracks for the Netherlands troops. The largest building was the barracks, a fairly well-built structure of wood, capable of accommodating all the Dutch troops, a force of about 150. The house of Mr. Kroesen, who was at that time the Resident, was quite an attractive building, with a glass roof and thin bamboo walls hung with a few curtains. It contained ten apartments, all on the ground floor. Next in importance was the house of the Comptroller, Mr. Schadee, which had only one apartment, with a large projecting roof and a fine verandah, under which the Comptroller entertained his friends. A little distance away were the open sleeping sheds of the Javanese convicts who had been brought there to build the Settlement and to drain the marsh. [Illustration: CURIOUS DRUMS OF THE TUGERI (DUTCH NEW GUINEA). The body of the drum is cut and hollowed from a solid trunk, and curiously carved. The drumheads are of lizard skin. ]