Lae 20 My morning spent on various items of delayed business in town. First called on Labor Inspector Norman Spence to learn the ropes with regard to employment of natives, and from there was taken to meet an ADQ (Assistant District Officer). We are now registered as an employer of native labor, and in possession of a Casual Worker's Engagement Register. No bond was asked. Our permanent staff will be employed as casual labor, and receive pay when they ask for it. The old contract system is still in use for some long-term labor but the contracts are no longer binding under law, the natives know this, and nothing much is to be gained by going through the signing-on procedure. Buntings of Samarai radioed this morning that Edewawa, my No. 1 flower-flower boy of the 1956 expedition has turned up in Samarai and I radioed for him to be sent here. John Womersley produced a very likely looking Finschhafen boy named Naton, and I took him on at three pounds a month and five shillings extra for Sundays worked. He will be my No. 2 botany boy. Also engaged, on trial, and perhaps not for long, a Fife Bay boy named as cooks assistant and general camp factotum. We now need only one boy to complete our planned crew of six. A report has arrived from Dr. Patek of New York to the effect that nothing new was found in throat tests which were made just prior to my leaving New York. This morning I was examined by Dr. Jamieson, chief medical officer for the district, who gave a good report. I still have follicles caused by strep infection, but the is no exudation, and by keeping the condition suppressed with 500,000 units of penicillin daily the thing may be expected to clear up in time. As in the United States, New Guinea has a present epidemic of streptococcus throats which do not respond readily to treatment by antibiotics. We are preparing for a three-day trip up the Bulolo and Wau Road to examine the country and do some collecting. The three of us, plus Naton and a Forestry boy named Salomon, left Lae in the Landrover at 2:20 pm on a reconnaissance trip to Bulolo and beyond. John Womersley and his family left after the children got home from school and overtook us at Patek Creek, not far below the Zenag Divide. We arrived at Bulolo and put up at the Pine Lodge Hotel at 5:30. Alt. 2300 ft. Examined country on way for possible camp sites. Best seen for a lowland camp was at Mark Schultz's unoccupied house, 23 miles from Lae and at most a couple of feet above sea level (a Forest Department aneroid on loan seemed unreliable). Another possible lowland site at The Bends forestry camp, five miles farther on. Gurakor at 2000-2200 feet a good foothills site, though the country generally steep and scope rather limited in consequence. Best camp site there would be a Public Works Department road camp, but this at present occupied by three men and not available to us. Close to this is a small coffee property belonging to one Pappy Duff, with a small thatched shack and a cook house, which could be made into a camp by rigging a work fly and a fly for the boys to sleep in. The Pine Lodge Hotel, leased now from the Bulolo Gold Dredging Company, has a good table for this part of the world, but the accommodations have deteriorated since I stayed a night there in January 1957. Van and I in a room with one chair for the two of us, a tattered floor mat, service bell and porch light out of order. No glasses or drinking water until long after we arrived, dusty and dry from the road. The toilet paper is completely non-absorbent (the Goroka Hotel has the same brand). A motel-type of place with 2-bedroom cottages, each bedroom with toilet and showerbath.