Whether they axe the remnants of a once powerful tribe it
is impossible to say, but their position is well-nigh impregnable
in case they are ever attacked, as their houses are surrounded by
swamps and water on all sides, and no outsider could very well get
through the swamps to their villages. The only possible way to get
there would be to cross the water in their shell-like canoes, a feat
which no man of any other tribe would ever be able to manage.
Monckton thought that these swamps and lake were formed by an overflow
of the Musa River. This had been a phenomenally dry season for New
Guinea, so these swamps in an ordinary wet season must be under water
to the depth of many feet.
We camped close by on the borders of the forest amid a jungle of
rank luxuriant vegetation, over which hovered large and brilliant
butterflies, among them a very large metallic green and black species
(ORNITHOPTERA PRIAMUS) and a large one of a bright blue (PAPILIO
ULYSES). The same afternoon we three went out shooting on the lake. Two
of the Agai Ambu canoes were lashed together and a raft of split
bamboo put across them, and two Agai Ambu men punted and paddled us
about. Before starting we had first educated them up to the report
of our guns, and after a few shots they soon got over their fright.
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