THE PARADISE-HUNTER
It is four o’clock in the afternoon. The ship’s launch is wallowing
toward the wharf, carrying with it ourselves and two of the ship’s
officers. Moh—our Javanese boy, cook, majordomo, and general nuisance—is
busily engaged in gathering our _barang_ together, preparatory to
getting it ashore. No one ever thinks of calling baggage anything but
“barang” after a few months in Malay waters. We just must show our
command of the vernacular and thereby escape classification as common
tourists.
As we near the wharf a motley crowd greets us with a variety of
expressions. The throng is composed for the most part of Malay-speaking
Javanese or Ambonese, but here and there one sees pajama-clad Chinese
and over there near the godown, or warehouse, is the white-clad figure
of a white man. He is approaching us rapidly. We scramble up the
rickety, slippery stairway to the dock and find ourselves in a
chattering gang who clamor to be allowed to carry our barang to the
_passangrahan_ or resthouse, which in these Dutch possessions is the
only shelter available to the stranger. It is maintained by the
Government for this purpose and in it one finds every convenience, but
one must supply one’s own servants and food.
We arrange with a Chinaman, who seems to be a sort of “straw boss” of
the coolies, for the transfer of our luggage, and dismiss the matter
from our minds. He will care for it and will not worry us, for the whole
bill will not be over two guilders, or about sixty cents. There are
twenty-two pieces to be moved. If we cared to argue the matter out we
might get the job done for one guilder, but it’s too warm for an
argument.
The white-clad figure is close to us now. He evidently is worried about
the arrival of something or other that he expects the boat to bring him.
He does not notice us, but goes directly to the ship’s officer who is
giving orders to the men lightering the cargo ashore. They engage in an
animated but good-natured conversation. Farther down the dock a scuffle
is taking place. The crowd thins out rapidly, and we can glimpse the
combatants now and then between the intervening onlookers. They are
slashing at each other with knives and whole-souled abandon. They are
Malay stevedores. From the lower end of the mole a grotesque native
policeman espies the affray and shouts to the battlers to desist,—this
with wild waving of his arms and dire threats of punishment. His shrill
admonitions do not seem to have the desired effect, and he suddenly
projects himself (that is the only word for it) in the general direction
of the mêlée. His old navy cutlass flashes in the waning sunlight as he
draws it with a great flourish and comes bouncing down the wharf. The
scabbard disconcertingly inserts itself between his legs and he performs
an absurd contortion to regain his footing. By miraculous intervention
of Providence he maintains his footing and arrives. _Smack! smack!_ and
the belligerents depart in opposite directions. The policeman’s cutlass
has accomplished its purpose. The fighters have been spanked into peace
with the flat of the blade.
As the pair separate a gentle voice beside us is raised in soft-toned
remonstrance. It is directed toward the misguided policeman. “Gad, man!”
it says, “don’t stop ’em; let ’em fight.” Then turning to us, the
speaker continues, “I just love to see the blood fly.” Our jaws drop. We
turn to scan the ferocious one and look him over in amazement. Before us
is a little man of somewhat uncertain age, clad largely in a huge
Vandyke that rambles in a casual fashion over his face. His voice is
soft, soft as a girl’s, and his eyes as we look into them lose their
bloodthirsty, anticipatory glint, and sparkle with kindliness and
good-fellowship.
[Illustration: Malays bringing on board their varied possessions]
[Illustration: As the last of the _praus_ was cleared of baggage they
clustered on the gangway, shouting adieus]
He extends his hand, a hand wrinkled and seamed like a last-year’s apple
and brown as a _claro_ from Sumatra. “My moniker’s Reache,” he tells us,
and we tell him our names. He continues: “You are Americans, eh? Well,
put ’er there! I like the way you fellows handled the railroad situation
in France. Here for long? Wait: stay here a moment while I see the mate
there, and I’ll take you over to the club for a drink. We’ll spin a yarn
and get acquainted. Can’t spin a yarn or get chummy sudden, ’less
there’s some square-face in sight; that’s solid. Back in a minute.”
As we watch him go we smile. So there is a club in Merauke! Five white
men,—and a club! It is proper. Where there is a club there must be a
bar. The barkeeper draws a salary, after a fashion. He must be kept
awake to lend an air of liveliness to the institution, so the members
foregather of an evening and sing raucously in the wee sma’ hours
expressly for that purpose. True, the club is but a palm-thatched
edifice with a slightly corrugated floor and reputation; nevertheless it
is a club. Nondescript furniture ungraces its airy spaciousness and
mud-wasps’ nests now and then fall upon one’s head as some fly-hungry
chick chack lizard carelessly dislodges them, but it is still “The
Club.” It being “The Club,” one must always remember to wear his coat
therein, for the etiquette of fleshpots is brought to this land of the
stewpots and observed with due reverence. No matter how deep in his cups
the superior white man may be, he must never appear at “The Club” in
negligée. It isn’t done.
The native may wander in the simmering heat of midday clad in what
approximates nothing, but the Tuan, being superior even when most
satisfyingly inebriated, to maintain his proper dignity must wear at all
times a coat over his regulation soft-collared shirt. Of course we
Americans are not really bound to do this, for our many eccentricities
are passed over without undue comment. When one of those who really
“belong” does make some allusion to one of our—what shall I
say?—indecorums, one of his fellows offers the all-sufficient excuse or
explanation, “Oh, he’s American.” This always suffices; and, too, it is
said as though the speaker expected as much and would have been
disappointed otherwise. And despite all this they like us. They really
like our devil-may-care expediency, and I think secretly envy us. In
this they “have nothing on us,” though, for it seems to be a human
tendency to envy something in the other fellow.
Reache joins us in a few moments, and we are soon ensconced in rather
rickety chairs on the veranda of the club. Between tumblerfuls of
square-face gin and long draws at an excellent Dutch cigar, he
entertains us with tales of bird-of-paradise hunting, which avocation he
follows somewhat successfully. He now and then makes our flesh creep
with a particularly hair-raising recital delivered somewhat in this
fashion:
“You fellows know, I guess, what I’m here for. It’s paradise. Not the
country, no! The country is hell and no mistake, but the birds,—that is
what I go after, and get, too. I outfitted in Moresby and when I got my
hunters together and plenty of petrol for the launch I headed for the
upper Diegul. It’s way up in the interior where we get the best birds.
It’s bad country up there, and no mistake, for the natives have a little
habit of lunching off one another when pig becomes scarce. The governor
warned me that I was taking my life in my hands, but I don’t know any
one else’s hands I’d rather have it in, so I went inside. My crew of
hunters was as ripe a gang of cutthroats as one would wish to see and
they tried cutting a few didoes among themselves, but after I’d knocked
a couple of them cold they took to behaving and I let things go at that.
“You want a gang like that for hard going. They’re necessary. The only
way to keep them happy is to give them plenty of work or, what they like
best, plenty of scrapping. Then they haven’t time to brood over
differences of opinion amongst themselves. I loaded a couple of bushels
of shells like that nigger out there has on. They wear them for pants.
One shell and Mr. Cannibal is all dressed up. Well, I use those shells
for currency. One first-class shell which costs me about ten cents Dutch
money buys a bird-of-paradise skin that is worth twelve hundred guilders
a cody,—that is, twenty skins,—or, as it figures out in real money,
forty dollars a skin. It’s a fair margin of profit.” Here Reache grins
and absorbs another tumblerful of square-face.
“Well,” he continues, “we went inside,—I, seven shooters, and some other
Moresby boys for packers. Soon we had all the shooting and trading we
wanted. Everything went all right for a time and there was no trouble
with the natives. I gave them one nice shiny shell for one prime skin
and they were as pleased as possible. The trouble started over some fool
thing that one of my boys said or did to one of the native women and
soon matters began to tense up a little. There was a Chinese outfit
inside, too, that were doing some trading and they tried to take
advantage of the natives. They gummed the game that season. The natives
stood for the Chinamen for a time, but pretty soon the old women of the
tribe called all the younger women and girls aside and told them that
the men were taboo till the Chinamen were put out of the way, and as
usual the younger ones agreed to what the old women said. (They always
have their way.) One fine evening the Kia Kias had a little dinner-party
to celebrate the resumption of domestic felicity attendant upon the
demise of the Chinese.
“The Chinamen were the guests of honor. They had been roasted to a turn.
Next day I visited the place and when I saw the kampong clearing I knew
what had happened. This piece of jade was the only thing left of the
Chinamen that I could see. The rest was eaten. I took this from one of
the children, who was playing with it. My gang were pretty sore about
it. I don’t think it was on account of the Chinese, particularly, but
because they had missed a good scrap, and they began to grouch. The next
day one of the natives came to the launch with a couple of skins. Ula
was working on the engine. The rest of my gang were all away in the
jungle, shooting. The skins were a little ruffled up, but I think what
made Ula angry was the fact that the native had on a pair of Chinese
trousers.
He never collected for the skins, for Ula picked up a spanner that he’d
been working on the engine with and tapped him with it. Then he tossed
him into the _kalee_ alongside to drift down the stream for the
crocodiles to dine on.
“The other natives all cleared out and that night we heard them singing
and beating drums in the jungle near their kampong. There was trouble in
the air. My boys began to rifle the barang for some heavier shells and a
couple of them built a big fire in the center of our clearing. About ten
in the evening one of them had walked out across the circle of the
firelight to throw on some more wood, when he stopped, straightened up,
and then collapsed in a heap.
“I jumped for my gun. A Kia Kia ten-foot spear had finished him. A
minute later hell broke loose. The natives did a queer thing for them.
They rushed us. Man, it was a beautiful fight! There was a sick sort of
a moon trying to see what was going on and the fire gave us a little
light, so we just lined up along the bank of the kalee and let them
come. Ula was a bird of a fighter. I’ve never seen more methodical
slaughter. He and I were lying a little apart from the rest and as each
bunch of howling painted devils came for us across the clearing we would
let them have it.
“They shot clouds of arrows at us, but as we were lying down in the tall
grass they all went high, though some of them whizzed by uncomfortably
close. When they ran out of arrows they came at us with stone-headed
clubs and we’d let them have what was in our twelve-gauges at thirty
feet. It was _bang! bang! bang!_ along the bank of that kalee, like a
clay-pigeon trap match.
[Illustration: The prison-yard in Merauke, New Guinea]
“Before long I noticed that things were pretty quiet over to my left
where the rest of my boys were, and I rose up to look. As I did so I
heard Ula grunt, “Look out!” and I swung around just in time to stop a
burly Kia Kia who was planning to do me with a stone club that would
have killed an elephant. Then Ula went down. They were coming at me from
both sides, for I could see the grass moving slowly where they were
sneaking up on me. I reached into my pocket to get some more shells and
got the shock of my life. I had shot my last one. My gun was empty.
There was nothing to do but get away, and I turned toward the spot on
the bank where the launch was tied. I had taken maybe a dozen steps
toward it when I heard a couple of plumps from the engine and then she
caught on and got to hitting regular.
“I rose up from the shelter of the tapa grass and made time toward the
sound. Ammed, the only one of the boys left, had started the kicker and
was pulling out. He saved my bacon that night. We didn’t waste any time
in getting down the river,—just kept going.”
Reache turns and shakes his head. While his hand gropes for the bottle
of square-face he sighs and concludes, “I lost some fine guns that
night.” We look at each other in speculation. The story sounds all
right, but— “Ah, here he comes!” exclaims Reache. “Here comes the
Controlleur.” Reache rises and goes to the railing of the veranda and
calls to a brown-skinned, black mustached, military-looking fellow.
After a moment’s conversation the Controlleur comes in with Reache,
greets us cordially, and tells us that he has the passangrahan ready for
us.
The Resident in Ambon has sent a letter by our steamer, telling of our
coming, and has ordered things done for us. It is the way these kindly
Dutch officials always treat the visitor. The Controlleur informs
us—much to his embarrassment, however—that there is a government charge
of what equals thirty-four cents a day for our accommodation. Much as he
regrets it, he says, there are no exceptions to this rule. We drown his
embarrassment with a liberal libation of Reache’s square-face and,
escorted by both of our new friends, go to inspect our quarters. We
shall be here in Merauke several days before proceeding up the coast, so
we must be very comfortable, they say.
As we near the passangrahan we take note of a group of sheet-iron
buildings surrounded by a high wire fence. It is the jail and watching
us intently are a score of prisoners. As we look in their direction they
break into smiles and call to us in Malay. They are asking us to secure
them for additional servants during our stay and, noting our surprise at
this, the Controlleur assures us that he will loan us all the help we
want. Later he makes good his word, for he sends several of the
prisoners over to the resthouse where we have taken up our abode. They
are accompanied by a native sergeant, who sits in the shade all day,
smoking. He never bothers about what the prisoners are doing and they
dutifully report to him at meal-times. In the evening, when their
house-cleaning and grass-cutting are over, they line up and return to
the jail. We even send them on errands, which they do conscientiously
but not at all hastily.
The Controlleur and Reache leave us—to get our things straightened out,
they say—and promise to call again to-morrow. They also say that we must
meet the other Europeans who are connected with the little
trading-company. We shall not be able to see the Assistant Resident on
business until the steamer sails, we are informed, for he has many
reports to forward to his chief in Ambon. These are always made up at
the last moment and the rush is terrible. The assistant is even now
writing the first of the two. One of them is to tell the chief that
Merauke is still in New Guinea, and the other that we have arrived and
are being well cared for. He must rest from this labor for a day; then
he will receive us with the formality due the distinguished guest. He
will inquire with solicitous concern as to our health, and what we most
desire to do, and will grant our every wish, after due deliberation.
Things of such weighty nature as our coming on a little friendly visit
must be treated with painstaking consideration. It is too warm to decide
too much in one day, for then judgment might be erroneous, and—oh, well!
why talk business when there is so much else to talk about? There hasn’t
been a stranger in Merauke for months, and we can’t blame them, can we?
No! We shall let the purpose of our coming go hang, and just sit down
and be entertained for the best part of a week. They will enjoy it
almost as much as we, so why not?
At the passangrahan we find that Moh has dinner ready. He shows us where
the bath-house is and we go there and revel in the cool splashing of the
water upon our perspiring bodies. The mode of bathing, here, is new to
us, but we feel we shall come to like it. The bath-house is exactly like
all others found throughout the Dutch East Indies. It is placed right
alongside the cook-house, which is detached from the main bungalow, that
the heat and smell of cooking may not invade the domain of the Tuan.
Within the palm-thatched room are several great jars of rain-water, a
wooden grid to stand upon, and a tin dipper of gallon size. One drenches
himself from head to foot, lathers thoroughly, then sluices down with
more gallons and the bath is complete. It is quick, easy, and
exhilarating. We are told not to try it much after nightfall, however,
unless we wish to be eaten alive. There are cannibalistic mosquitos here
that will charge en masse, drive in their lances, and bear you away in
chunks. They are nocturnal in their habits and we are profoundly
thankful that this is so, for at night one sleeps behind a protecting
_klambu_ or mosquito curtain which completely enshrouds the bed. There
one falls into slumber secure from their attacks and lulled by their
incessant droning. Now and then some persistent fellow manages to find
entrance and one becomes aware of a more shrill note in the general hum
that increases in pitch until it is punctuated with a hesitant quaver
followed by a red-hot stab,—upon almost any spot, but generally on the
temple, where it accomplishes most. This is the occasion of two things.
The first, a hunting-expedition with a lighted wax taper, which ends in
the incineration of the intruder, and an angry determination to murder
Moh the very next morning for leaving an opening in the folds of the
net. Justly or unjustly, Moh always serves as scapegoat. He thrives on
it.
Dinner over, we hunt up a tin cigar box to serve as an ash-tray and take
it to bed with us. It is too early to go to sleep and too mosquito-y, if
I may use the term, to be up and around. In New Guinea one hides from
these pests as soon as darkness falls. Moh, though he has a leather
skin, builds a great smudge of cocoanut husks. The smoke of it makes him
weep and gasp, but he persists in his friendly gossip with a man from
Java lately come to Merauke, telling him the latest news and of his
latest wife. The other listens with sparkling eyes and rapt attention to
Moh’s description.