We had not been long at Mafulu when we were faced with another trouble. Our food supply began to run low. We found that the tinned provisions had been tampered with, and suspected native thieves; our suspicions one day being confirmed, when our dog Yule brought in from the forest two empty meat tins which had been broken open with the axe. This evidence was incontestable, for we ourselves always used the tin-opener. Of course, when we taxed our Papuans they were ignorant of the whole affair. This theft did not improve our larder; meat ran out, we had very little tea and no sugar, only a scanty supply of flour, and, worst of all, no salt. We were accordingly dependent upon sweet potatoes and yams, which we purchased from the Mafulu people, and occasionally a few bananas were obtainable. The boys soon began to grumble about the cold and lack of food, but the real reason of their discontent was, of course, fear of the Mafulu people. Every day deputations waited on Sam and myself and threatened to leave. It was evident that the discontent was stirred up by two ringleaders, so we found out who these were and talked to them very severely, telling them they might go; but two men would not dare to venture back to their own village through a hostile country, so, of course, our permission to leave was not taken. These troubles were very annoying, for we wanted to remain as long as we could, as we were getting admirable specimens, but about the fourteenth day of our stay matters had come to such a pass that we had to give the men a definite promise that we would leave in a week. With such a state of things constant vigilance became necessary, and we had to divide the nights into watches. Sam would take three hours and then I would take three hours, and some of the natives were always awake for fear of other natives. It was very lonely in camp, but we passed the time smoking and watching a few sweet potatoes baking in the embers. As our own fellows were disaffected, it was necessary also to keep them under constant observation. From the tent we could watch their quarters, and Sam made a bamboo bed in the men’s shelter. They, poor fellows, had rather a rough time of it, apart from their fears and discontent, for one night a tremendous deluge of rain swamped their quarters. Next day they went into the forest and cut a large quantity of bamboo leaves, with which they made a splendid rain-tight roof about 6 inches thick. As it would have been a pity to have left without doing our best to get specimens of the paradise bird, we sent all our shooting boys away and allowed them to take a tent with them. The long-tail paradise birds frequent the Pandanus trees when they are in seed, and when the shooters found a tree in that condition they would camp near it and lie in wait for the birds. While this little expedition was out, Sam, Harry, myself, and a boy remained alone in considerable anxiety, for while the guns were away none of us had any sleep.