Some of the young braves sleep on board the last night, and the next day at dawn, if the wind should be favourable, a start is made. The last good-byes are said, the small canoes dart to and from the shore with final messages, and as the great _lakatois_ slowly get under way, the girls crowd upon the beach, shouting and waving to their young heroes, until the last odd-shaped sail has disappeared round the farthest promontory. The men of the village will not be seen again for two months, and some perhaps not at all, for the voyage is long and beset with divers perils, and not every _lakatoi_ weathers the sudden treacherous squalls and storms of the Papuan coast. Their captains, of course, have no knowledge whatever of the science of navigation, and sail their vessels by cross bearings, or—when out of sight of land—by sheer instinct. During the whole time that the traders are absent, gloom reigns in Hanuabada. At nightfall the desolate women bar themselves into their houses, and remain in the most jealous seclusion until the daylight reappears. It is a most unflattering reflection that this custom has only arisen since Europeans first came to Papua. From Port Moresby I intended to go sixty miles westward to Yule Island, and thence push into the interior of British New Guinea, where I proposed to pursue the special scientific work for which my expedition had been undertaken. The point which I intended to use as my centre of operations would require a journey up country of at least three weeks’ duration, through an almost unknown region, where only native paths existed, or, at the best, a missionary road extending for a short distance. Wheeled traffic was, of course, impossible, and everything would have to be transported by carriers. The first necessity was, therefore, to procure transport, a work of infinite difficulty; but at last, chiefly through the great assistance and courtesy of Mr. Hislop, then resident magistrate of the district of Mekeo, sixty miles west of Port Moresby, I obtained a sufficient number of carriers. Mr. Hislop then took the trouble to go as far inland with me as our first halting-place, Epa, in order to help me and to use his influence to persuade the natives to give me their services. The gross weight of the baggage to be carried must have been, at least, 2000 lbs., and it consisted first and foremost of what is technically known as “trade,” that is, beads, axes, 18–inch knives, 9–inch knives, 6–inch knives, tobacco, looking-glasses, red calico, bright-coloured cotton prints, plane-irons for axe-heads, Jew’s-harps—for which a Papuan will do almost anything—and, most valued of all, dogs’ teeth. In addition to this, I had to carry the whole of my apparatus for collecting—100 nets, 60 to 70 cyanide bottles and enough cyanide of potassium to poison the whole population of New Guinea, store boxes, pins, cork bungs, and lamps. I had also a complete photographic equipment.