Lae 32 black funnel of the China Navigation Co., Ltd., but I was not satisfied it was our ship until I read the name on her bows. We are again in Bob Buntings comfortable house in Lae. John Womersley, working on the inside, had Customs clearance on our cargo before the ship began to unload. I worked through the afternoon on collections I am trying to dry. I have been so far ahead of drying capacity in my field work that mold is be- ginning to show in some specimens. It will be a blessing to have my own equipment. Tuesday, April 21. We have our cargo. Most of the boxes have been unloaded. So far the only breakage has been one small killing bottle. The Museum shipping room did an excellent job of crating. The guns are in order, the radio works. So does my typewriter, delicate thing that it is. Our packages stood out in the bulk shed by the quality of the crates and boxes. But even so we had trouble in finding one package -- #1 containing the ammunition. The Shansi's Chinese tally clerks checked the number of items taken out of the holds. There was no checking onto the wharf or into the storage shed. That shed was a shambles. Consignments were mixed and there was no organized stacking. We were there bright and early in the morning with a Forests Dept. truck and a Ferguson tractor and trailer. Found 14 packages, but #1 was missing. I naturally thought that as it contained ammunition it would be special cargo and in charge of the first mate, under lock and key. Nothing was known about it on the ship. John made another search of the shed and kept watch on the ship's unloading in the afternoon. He reported back at 4:30 that the box had not turned up and that the ship was trying to squirm out of responsibility on the grounds that they had no box of ammo on their manifest and knew nothing about. I hastened down to the wharf, and got the same attitude from first the ship's "writer" then the 1st officer. When told that it was no business of theirs what #1 contained, it was merely one of 15 packages of ours on their manifest and it was missing, the mate became reasonable. The ship was already past her sailing hour, but was waiting for a passenger lost ashore. It seemed that our box might turn up as unloading proceeded at some other New Guinea port. We had a final look through the storage shed. Then the Colyer Watson clerk of the wharf had a brain wave. The missing box could be in a small open shed where deck cargo was stored. And there it was. It had simply disappeared in the hands of the natives who were handling the cargo. Also on the Shansi were two crates of live traps sent from Singapore by Bob Traub. Van had asked him to send half a dozen traps. He sent 80, packed in two flimsy crates which must have been put together by some bush Malay. One crate was barely holding together, the other was in pieces and traps of various sizes, makes, and antiquity lay mixed in the store shed with cans of meat and packets of tea from other broken cargo. To dinner with the Womersleys in the evening. From them we learned that Margaret Gilliard was expected in Lae about the first of May, Tom about two weeks later. Wednesday, April 22. Had to spend the whole morning on my plant collection. Some of the plants have not dried at all in the equipment I have been obliged to use. A few specimens have molded badly and have had to be thrown out. Have one of my own drying units in action now.