"I had gone up the Fly River in my steam launch to a point never previously reached by a European.
I was fortunate enough to get some specimens that had never been seen before, and I was returning to the coast.

My engineer and I were captured when ashore one night getting fuel for our furnace.

They took us into the forest a long way, binding our hands with the fiber of one of the creepers, and I had no trouble whatever gathering that it was their intention to make a feast of us--a sort of high tea, it was to be, for they began brewing the herbs which I knew they used only when they were cannibalizing.

We were courteously permitted to watch these preparations, for it was rightly assumed that they would be in some degree interesting to us.

We were, indeed, greatly interested in all we saw, but much more so when, toward evening, a number of the natives arrived on the scene carrying with them some of the stores which they had found aboard the steam launch.