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Subject :- Sepik River Expedition. Report on.
Lessel Island N.E. leads into the mouth of the Sepik River in deep water. There is no bar, but shallow water extends off the the Starboard hand point going in, and seaward some 2 miles from it. The port hand is steep to except for a sandy spit which is a continuation of the low land on that side. The entrance is quite a mile wide, the banks being low, and covered with bush, mainly sago palms.
There is little change in the rate of the flow of the current throughout the whole 450 miles traversed, and with a careful regard to the law of the ebb tide, not less that 5 fathoms, and usually 7 fathoms can be obtained. The river is full of twists and turns, none of which presented the slightest difficulty of negotiation, notwithstanding the apparently violent eddies, amounting in some cases to whirlpools, which are to be met with in the deeper turns.
The least water obtained in the lower reaches was 5 fathoms off the village of Bien, but I am pretty certain that 7 fathoms might have been obtained even here if the exact channel had been found. Passing Bien, a ship must keep very close to the right bank, near the village. Very shallow water extends off the elbow of the left bank here as the river is very wide at this point. The country here is mostly dense sago bush with cocoanut palms and fairly grown timber near the villages.
Native tracks seem to connect the villages on the banks, and branch tracks lead from these down to little clearings or landing places at the water side. About 35 miles up the banks are a few feet higher, and the ground less swampy, so that the sagos give place to stouter timbers, and the straight reach just short of Marienberg (Mission station 40 miles) is flanked on either side by magnificent virgin forest. Almost a solid curtain of creepers hangs shutting out a glimpse of the interior, festooned as they are from tree to tree. No natives live in this part near the river but there are several villages some few miles back of this forest belt.