come and do the washing-up; we told him no but later he said that he felt ashamed that we should do it ourselves and looked so mournful that he was allowed to wash the lunch things and may be permitted to prepare supper, I suspect. This afternoon I prepared the next ration order, which is to carry us through to the end of August and the end of the mountain and mountain-slope camps. After that comes the return to Samarai, but I would not care to make any definite statement regarding dates; things change here very quickly and everything is completely dependent upon so many other factors that one must be adapta- ble and ready for alterations in plan. The point is that we shall not be ordering any more stores before our return to Samarai, though we may be taking some back with us, I suspect. 4 May. After all our information and misinformation, the Jessie arrived in a day ahead of schedule, dropping her anchor off Spiller's wharf about 1600 last night. It will not make any difference to our departure however, and we shall get away very early tomor- row morning. The cargo now is all loaded and about all that remains to be done is the folding and beling up of our cots and blankets tomorrow morning. We shall all be happy to move on; for the last four days there has been nothing to do except kill time, and that is a monotonous form of existence. The Jessie brought in a batch of mail in the Baniara bag, which of course went down to Peter; he sent our lot back this morning and I received some which was dated earlier than the letters Len brought back on the 2nd. I thought from certain references which Miriam made that there were one or two missing. Now all hands are getting mail finished up, which will be taken back to Samarai on the Jessie after she has dropped up at Vaiava. We do not know when the next lot will be sent out but if a police runner comes up to us, he will certainly wait and take out any- things we have to go. 5th May For the next few days I think this will not be much except a sort of time-table, which probably will record the various frustrating things which attend a porter- ing job by natives. We got up this morning at 0345 because the camp clock was half an hour fast; we had intended * 0415. Our two cooks were right on the job, in fact the alarm was under Losima's head and he slept with his ear against it. The Captain of the Jessie had stated that he wanted to leave at daybreak, but by the time that we had had morning tea, finished our packing, dismantled camp and had all the loads carried to Spiller's landing, off which the Jessie was anchored, there was still no life or signs of same showing aboard the ship. It was after 0700 before we left Menapi, which recorded frustration No. 1. The original plan was to call at a place named Medino, where we were to pick up a number of porters (these small ships will load up to an indefinite degree with natives) and then go on to Baiawa, where we are to get more porters, canoe some of the loads around and up Kwagira Creek to the place where it crosses the trail, and also make some carries from Baiawa to the same place. The manoeuvering to get into Medino however was so tricky on account of coral nigger-heads, just under water, that we spent over an hour after we started to head into land and it was therefore too late to go on as darkness had fallen and it was impossible to see the way out again. The porters, twelve of them, were there, so we went ashore, took a bath in a stream and decided to spend the night on the Jessie. There were no particular incidents, humorous or otherwise, to note here, but the sun and reflection on the water was very strong and we are sun- burned all over again. Crocs infest the creek on which Medino is situated and some were seen but none taken. 6th May. The departure from Medino took place without any incident at about 0745; the porters came on board, as did our own boys who had spent the night ashore, giving the Jessie a total of not much less than forty people on board. We came into Baiawa shortly after 1100 hours and anchored some hundred yards away from the place it- self, which is on a little mangrove creekbordered with mangroves and only about eighteen inches deep for the last fifty yards. Here we found that a number of porters had gather- ed and left again because we were so late in getting here, which rather threw us back. Ken is beginning to fail us rather, as his organizing ability is approximately mit nil, although he is most capable in anything which requires physical effort. I trust there will be no strife between him and Len, but this is no place for writing that. Frustra- tion plays havoc with all of us. After considerable arguing with the porters we took on at Medino, who were anxious to quit also, after gazing at Maneau towering over us all