Tuesday, 19 August, 1948. This has been another unproductive day and was occupied mainly in getting George and Van ready for their departure to pastures new, where they hope to find more and better things. I hope they will though they have done very well here. It was a couple of degrees warmer this morning, when we rose, being 60, but it is such an abrupt change form the lowlands that I shall be glad on that score also when we return to Peach Camp and to Coen. Len and I leave here on the 22nd, since the missing packhorse came ambling into the camp down below, but one is now laid up with saddle sores and only four came today to remove the mammalogists. Now they have been gone some hours and I have to get supper ready for Len, Willie and myself. I have been doing fairly well, instructing the boys in how to prepare stews for the midday meal and to render palatable what is left of the stew for the evening meal. If only I could bake bread, we would not need Joe at all. Friday, 20 August 1948. The day yielded me about ten dragonflies and not very much else - so much for the day. I have been thinking about the three blacks and their wish to return overland. I mentioned it to Len but he thinks we are committed to the Pro- tector at Thursday Island to return them by sea. It seems to me though that their idea is a good one and instead of having their passage money simply gone, for them to arrive in possession of a horse could do nothing but good for all concerned. It might be worth while to write to the Protector. On the subject of abbos, it seems to me that they are not getting a very square deal - of course they never have anywhere. But here it seems par- ticularly bad though the ultimate idea, that they cannot save anything them- selves and that their earnings, placed in the Protector's hands will enable them to live in their usual manner after they are unable to work, is good. The crux is of course the Protector himself and his interest, if any, in his charges. Some of them quite plainly have no interest whatever and I should guess that the Thursday Island man is one. They offer a difficult problem but in war times are treated as are the whites, so far as military service is concerned, and it seems to me wrong to take them in times of trouble and when these times are over just to tell them to go back to their novels and treat me as a God again. So far as that is concerned, I suppose not apply only to abbos; from the press we are led to believe that some of the middle-European countries, or populations, I should say, are in no better condition. Len seems a bit under the weather today; twice he has left what he was doing and lay down on his bed for a spell. I hope there is nothing wrong as it will not be possible to get him out of here until the horses arrive on the day after tomorrow. Now I must fill my lamp and start considering what part of our larder will be consumed tonight. It is a scanty, sketchy one, I am sorry to say. In fact I seem to be dwelling on it subconsciously - I was wondering while washing my socks in the stream this afternoon which I would take, were I offered my choice between sea-food and steak. Saturday, 21 August 1948. Len turned in last night shortly after I had fin- ished the above entry. He had been quite violently ill and it may be that he has somehow picked up a touch of the flu' which was rife in Coen. He complained of having had a bad night when we roused this morning and immediately was ill again but after spending the greater part of