We started off once more in the icy rain, keeping along the crest of the hill, which was just wide enough for the path. The mountain sloped steeply down on either side, the thick mist made an early twilight, we could only see the spot where we set our feet, while all the surroundings were lost in grey fog, so that we felt as though we were walking in a void, far above all the world. At nightfall we arrived at a solitary hut--the home of our companions. After having repaired the broken roof, my boys succeeded in lighting a fire, though how they did it is a mystery, as matches and everything else were soaked. Soon tea and rice were boiling, while I tried to dry my instruments, especially my camera, whose watertight case had not been able to resist the rain. Then I wrapped myself up in my blanket, sipped my tea and ate my rice, and smoked a few pipes. It certainly is a reward for the day's work, that evening hour, lying satisfied, tired and dreamy, under the low roof of the hut, while outside the wind roars through the valley and the rain rattles on the roof, and a far-off river rushes down a gorge. The red fire paints the beams above me in warm colours, and in the dark corners the smoke curls in blue clouds. Around a second fire the natives lie in ecstatic laziness, smoking and talking softly, pigs grunt and dogs scratch busily about.
In the morning the storm had passed, and I could see that the house was set on the slope of a high mountain, much as a chalet is, and that we were at the end of a wild ravine, from every side of which fresh rivulets and cascades came pouring. Owing to the mountainous character of the country there are no villages here, but numerous huts scattered all along the mountains, two or three families at the utmost living together. The structure of the houses, too, was different from those on the coast; they had side walls and a basement of boulders, sometimes quite carefully built. Here men and women live together, and a separation of the fires does not seem to exist, nor does the "Suque" seem to have penetrated to this district.
We passed several hamlets where the mode of life was the same as in this one. The dress of the men is the same as at the coast, except that they wind strings of shell-money about their waists in manifold rows. The women wear a bunch of leaves in front and behind. The weapons are the same as elsewhere, except that here we find the feathered arrows which are such a rarity in the Pacific. It is surprising to find these here, in these secluded valleys among the pygmy race, and only here, near Talamacco, nowhere else where the same race is found. It is an open question whether these feathered arrows are an original invention in these valleys, an importation or a remnant of an earlier culture.
