I made a portion of my return voyage to New Zealand in the _Myrtle_;
and her first place of call was at Yule Island, where she stopped
to load a cargo of sandalwood. Large quantities of this timber were
at that time exported to China by a man named Hunter, who was then
commonly known as “The Sandalwood King”; he was making thousands of
pounds a year, counted his employees by hundreds, owned several small
vessels and many mule and horse teams. The miles of roads he made
through the forest--in order to bring out his timber--would have been
regarded as a credit to any ordinary civil engineer; as a matter of
fact, they were then the only roads worth calling such in New Guinea.
Hunter had as a rival in his timber business--if a man could be called
a rival who got in a year about as much sandalwood as Hunter got in a
day--a Frenchman known as “Brother John,” a jovial fat person looking
like the typical old friar. Brother John had been a lay brother
attached to the Sacred Heart Mission at Mekeo, and he had, I regret
to say, been smiled upon by the Papuan girl who did his washing,
and, sadder still, he returned the smile. Time went on, until one
day the girl’s parents appeared at the Mission, hauling along their
erring daughter; they presented her to a scandalized monastery, drew
particular attention to her figure, and asked what the Mission was
going to do about it. Brother John was immediately expelled from the
lay brotherhood of the order and commanded to marry the girl, which
he did at once. Over this little incident some little time afterwards
he scored rather badly off the Governor or Chief Justice, one of whom
met him and, shaking his head, said reprovingly, “I am sorry to hear
of your fall, Brother John.” “Fall, Monseigneur,” said Brother John,
“fall! Why, before I was only ze bruzzer, now I am ze fazzer!”
From Yule Island the _Myrtle_ sailed with every available foot of
space crammed full of the pleasant-smelling wood, as it seemed to me
at first; even her deck had a great pile stacked on it. For a day or
so one continued to like the scent, then it got into one’s hair, into
the ship’s water, into one’s clothes and food, in fact into everywhere
and in everything; until one fairly loathed it, and rushed to poke
one’s head to windward for a few minutes’ sniff of the clean salt sea.
A guano vessel stinks, a ship loaded with copra smells of rancid oil,
but a boat laden with sandalwood cloys and sickens the senses more than
either. I was told that the greater part of the sandalwood imported
into China is used in the manufacture of joss sticks and incense, and
for making sandalwood oil; whether this is true or not I do not know.
At Thursday Island I bade farewell to the schooner _Myrtle_; for she,
having transhipped her cargo to a China steamer, returned to New
Guinea, and I took up my quarters in one of the hotels, to wait with
what patience I possessed for a south-bound steamer. Thursday Island
is--or rather was--the centre of the pearling industry, and is one of
the most God-forsaken holes I know of; there is absolutely nothing to
do in the place to kill time. With the exception of a few soldiers,
Government officials, professional and business men, and pearl vessel
owners, the population consists of a miscellaneous collection of
Japanese, Chinese, Malays, Kanakas, Queensland aborigines, and general
crossbreds and mongrels from the Lord knows where.
There has been for some years past considerable discussion in the
Australian Parliament and the Press as to whether Northern Australia
can, or ever will, be fully occupied by Australian or European people.
One has only to give a glance at the white women, or purely white
children, dwelling in Thursday Island, Cairns, or northward from there,
to see the question answered; women and children alike--pale, listless,
and anæmic--show plainly the need for constant change to a cool and
bracing climate. It is sheer inhumanity to expect a child-bearing woman
in the tropics to perform any but the lightest of domestic duties,
and if these duties cannot be done by the women, then they must be
performed by native domestic servants. Australia, however, does not
possess an indigenous native population sufficient for the supply
of this want--or suitable, if sufficient--and as the Government has
closed its doors to the admission of Papuans or Melanesians--both
highly suitable races for the purpose--it naturally follows that a
fitting class of white men will never settle or take their families
there. No country has, as yet, been populated by men married to women
of native races or half-breeds. I have frequently heard the argument
used in Australia, that the white man is as good a worker as the native
anywhere, and under any conditions. I do not agree with this; but even
accepting it as true, the fact remains that, in the tropics, the white
woman is not capable of hard work and should not be asked to do it.
Shortly, therefore, my contention is this: if Northern Australia is
to be populated by a white race, the men must take their white wives
with them; and they can only do that if allowed to make especially
favourable conditions for them by the aid of native servants. No
law--not even one made by an Australian Labour Government--can alter
the natural laws governing the distribution of the climates of the
earth, or the disabilities of sex.
The Australasian Parliament suffers from a chronic state of nervous
dread of the East; and it is likely to continue to do so, as long as
it pursues the dog-in-the-manger policy of keeping a vast country
unoccupied. The best thing Australia can do with the Northern Territory
is to combine its administration with that of New Guinea, under the
Crown Colony system of Government, and permit the introduction of
native labour from New Guinea--at any rate for domestic service or work
on the plantations.
Upon the arrival of the China steamer _Changsha_, I gladly shook the
dust of Thursday Island from my boots, sailing in her for the South.
When I reached New Zealand I employed my spare time for some months
in studying navigation and surgery, whilst I built up my health in
preparation for a fresh venture to New Guinea. Here I met again my old
friend, Richard Burton. Burton was some years older than myself and,
up to that time, had lived a mixed sort of life: educated at Eton, he
had then harried his parents into sending him to sea, and had made
one voyage to Australia and back in a sailing ship; disgusted with
that, he had passed into Sandhurst; not finding that to his liking, he
was removed by his parents and sent to the College of Agriculture at
Cheltenham, after which he had come to New Zealand and started sheep
farming. A crack shot, a fine boxer and fencer, afraid of nothing
that either walked, flew or swam, and crammed with a vast lore of
out-of-the-way knowledge, I was more than pleased when he volunteered
to accompany me back to New Guinea. Burton gave me news of Sylvester
who had gone with me on my first trip, and of whom I had heard nothing
since he left me at Woodlark Island. After leaving there he had
suffered severely from protracted bouts of malaria, and had gone home
to England, where, whilst paying a visit to Longner Hall, Burton’s home
in Shropshire, he had become engaged to marry the latter’s sister, and
meditated, after the marriage, returning to New Zealand to take up
sheep farming.
The scheme Burton and I agreed upon was to go to Sydney and there
purchase a small sailing vessel, ship as a crew a few Kanakas--if we
could get them--load the vessel with mining gear, and go and work the
reef, or rather porphery leader, which had been buried by Brady and
myself in Woodlark Island. If that project failed--well, we should
have a vessel under us, and British, Dutch or German New Guinea, the
Solomon, Aru or Admiralty Islands, or, for that matter, the whole of
the Malay Archipelago, to seek our fortunes in; neither of us cared
very much what we did or whither we went, provided there was something
worth having at the end. We expected to find Brady somewhere in the
islands and take him on with us.
[Illustration: R. F. L. BURTON, ESQ., AND HIS MOTUAN BOYS]
When we were on the eve of leaving New Zealand for Sydney, a man we
both knew, named Alfred Cox, asked to be allowed to join us; he had
been a middy in the Royal Navy, but had been obliged to leave owing
to a steadily increasing deafness, and since then had been farming in
New Zealand. We were not at all keen on having him, as he was not a
strong man, and he somehow or other contrived to smash one of his bones
or otherwise damage himself at unpleasantly frequent intervals. He,
however, begged hard, and at last we consented to his throwing in his
lot with us.
Arriving in Sydney from New Zealand we inserted the following
advertisement in the morning papers--not knowing the deluge it would
bring down upon us: “Wanted to buy a schooner, cutter or ketch, between
fifteen and thirty tons burden. Apply ‘B. M.,’ Mêtropole Hotel.” On
the afternoon of the day of publication of the papers, Burton and I
were returning from a shopping expedition, during which we had been
purchasing arms, ammunition, charts, instruments, chemicals, tools,
etc., when we found the hall porter at the hotel endeavouring to stall
off a mixed crowd of people all clamouring to see “B. M.” Hastily
we interfered; and, taking them one by one, we arranged interviews
with them at our gunsmith’s shop. Broken-down tugs, worn-out coastal
steamers, fishing boats, timber scows, vessels building, vessels to
be built, all sorts and conditions were offered to us at exorbitant
prices; some of the owners and agents we sent off at once, the vessels
of others we put on a list for private inspection, and in nine cases
out of ten found the description widely different from the reality.
Cox got bored with it all, for he thought we should never get a vessel
at the rate we were going on; and he suggested that he should go off
and call upon Captain Anson of H.M.S. _Orlando_, a friend of his, and
borrow a carpenter or bo’sun’s mate to assist us in our choice. To this
course of action we agreed and, having carried it out, Cox returned
to tell us that Captain Anson’s opinion was, that a man-of-war’s man
would be of no use to us, but that a man who owned a sail-making and
ship-rigging business would be the very man for our purpose. The same
man was once employed to bring a yacht from England to Australia; by
some misadventure or other he and his crew had run short of provisions,
and had then eaten the cabin boy. How the master and crew escaped at
their trial I don’t know, probably upon some plea of self-preservation,
but the fact was established that the cannibalism had taken place.
Many years after we had met him, he fell the first victim in Australia
to bubonic plague. Upon our presenting Captain Anson’s card, he at
once said he only knew of three vessels likely to suit us, and all
were yachts; we found one was too large and expensive, another was too
small, whilst the third was a racing cutter of sixteen tons, named the
_Guinevere_, built in England of oak, copper fastened, and yawl rigged
for cruising purposes. This vessel was now outclassed for racing, and
had fallen into the hands of a money-lender named London, by whom she
was used for card parties and pleasant little trips in the harbour. We
were assured that the _Guinevere_ was as sound and staunch as on the
day she was built, and we accordingly bought her.
We hauled the _Guinevere_ up on to a slip for a general overhaul and
refitting, and I took the opportunity of having her fitted with a
powerful rotary pump, in addition to her own, my New Guinea experience
having taught me the advantage of plenty of pumps. To this pump we
owed our lives a great deal sooner than I expected. We left the slip,
with every foot of our little vessel chock full of stores, tools,
etc., and ran down to Watson’s Bay at the mouth of Sydney harbour.
There we joined a small fleet of sailing vessels all waiting for the
lowering of a storm signal, then flying at the flagstaff. Among these
vessels was a yawl named the _Spray_, owned and manned by a “Captain”
Slocum--a Yankee--by whom she had been entirely built in America, and
who was now engaged in the endeavour to sail her single-handed round
the world. We had foregathered with Slocum, who told us he had just
been visited by the master of the London Missionary Society’s steamer,
the _John Williams_, who, after having inspected his navigating
instruments, amongst which was his chronometer, consisting of what he
called a “one dollar watch,” had remarked that he appeared to put a
lot of trust in Providence. He then invited Slocum to lunch on board
the _John Williams_, when with pride he exhibited that ship’s numerous
and splendid instruments and expensive chronometers; Slocum gazed in
admiration, and then drawled, “Waal, Captain, I calculate you sky
pilots don’t put much faith in Providence!”
We had failed to find any Kanakas for a crew in Sydney, and we
dared not attempt to ship white men, as the authorities asked many
embarrassing questions as to certificates, objects of voyage, etc.;
fortunately the liberty of a yacht still clung to the _Guinevere_, and
they did not apparently bother very much about the three owners. While
we were lying in Watson’s Bay, Burton received a cable telling him that
his elder brother had broken his neck in the hunting field, and asking
him to return home at once. He decided, however, not to leave me in the
lurch, but to come on as far as Cooktown in North Queensland, where
I could ship a black crew. We were still anchored there, when we were
boarded by an official from a launch belonging to the Marine Board, by
whom we were harried exceedingly, but whom we placated to a certain
extent by means of mixed drinks; he, however, refused to allow us to
quit our anchorage without life-buoys, which we did not possess. Our
money by this time was getting extremely short, so, accordingly, Burton
and I interviewed our shipwright, who sold us some dummies good enough
to pass the Marine Inspector. Then, storm signals or no storm signals,
for fear of further interference, we decided to go to sea, where Marine
Boards and shipping authorities worried not and we could go our way in
peace. Apparently some of the other sailing vessels, ships of large
tonnage, had become sick of waiting for the promised storm that never
came, for about half a dozen of us left the harbour in rotation.
Off Newcastle that night, however, a true “Southerly Buster” hit
us and, not knowing the harbour or the coast, we stood out to sea
close-hauled. We had the devil of a time: first we lost our dingey,
then when, as I calculated, we were about sixty miles off the coast,
our jib and staysail went in rapid succession; I was steering, lashed
by my legs to cleats to prevent being washed overboard, and every time
the cabin scuttle was opened a huge sea went below. It was impossible
for either Burton or Cox to venture on deck, for, before they could
possibly secure themselves, they were bound inevitably to go overboard,
the _Guinevere_--like all racing vessels--having only a few inches
of rail and no bulwarks; in any case, they could do no good on deck.
Upon the staysail going, Burton managed, at the imminent risk of his
life, to crawl on deck for a few seconds to slack the main sheet, and
so let me get the vessel before the wind; hardly had he done so than a
huge sea swept right over us, and fortunately, instead of taking him
overboard, washed him down the scuttle. Half an hour later he poked up
his head and yelled, “The cabin is half full of water which is rising
fast; if we don’t pump we shall sink.” Luckily the handle of the new
pump was within reach of the scuttle, and Burton, wedging himself
firmly in the opening, seized the brake, and for some hours just kept
pace with the inflowing water; then the pump choked, and the water
steadily rose in the cabin. We did not bother very much about this, for
the mainsail was tearing from its ropes, and we knew that when that
went, it was only a matter of a few minutes before we broached-to and
were smashed into fragments by the seas.
At last with a tearing bang the mainsail went, and I thought we were
gone too; it was too dark to see, one could only hear. The vessel
gave a horrid deadly sort of sideways lurch, and then instinctively
I met it with the helm and found, to my amazement, that she still
kept steerage way, and was running on as though under sail; and so
she ran for an hour, when dawn broke, and I saw that our blown-out
mainsail was jambed across her mast and rigging, and was acting as a
square-sail. Cox then steered, while Burton and I securely lashed the
sail in the position it then was; that done, we turned our attention to
the pumps, for the _Guinevere_ was half full of water. The first pump,
her original one, we abandoned as hopeless after the first half-hour;
the other, the rotary one, we carefully took to pieces, as the whole
water-raising part of the mechanism of the pump was on deck. We found
in it some small chips of wood jambing the valves--chips left below
decks by the carpenters working at her on the slip; cleaning these
we soon had the pump working, and two hours’ toil gave us a dry ship
again. Then, in spite of an enormous sea and a howling gale still
blowing, we felt fairly hopeful, and settled down to a three days’
fight, to bring our vessel again to a port to refit. At last we made
Port Macquarie, telling a steamer that approached and wanted to tow us,
to go to the devil, for we had awful visions before our eyes of claims
for salvage.
At Port Macquarie we signalled for a tug, and were soon safely at
anchor in the river; we here heard that a number of vessels had been
wrecked at Newcastle during the gale, and found that we also had been
reported as lost. The pilot and his boat’s crew very kindly gave us a
lot of help in refitting our rigging and sails, for which service they
would take no payment. Here Cox--after getting into a row with the
police for shooting at a flock of pelicans with a rifle, these birds
being strictly protected--decided to return to New Zealand; we soothed
the police by explaining that anything Cox shot at was perfectly safe,
the only thing likely to be hurt was something at which he was not
shooting. Having completed our refitting, and Cox having departed in a
sailing vessel for Sydney, Burton and I again went to sea.
For a day or two we worked the _Guinevere_ north in bad weather, and
then, as Burton and myself were utterly worn out from want of sleep,
we decided to run in and anchor near the Solitary Isles; this we
accordingly did, but unfortunately amongst a lot of rocks and shoals
and in a very exposed position. The sailing directions described these
waters as highly dangerous. About an hour before daylight the sea and
wind got up, with the result that our anchor parted, whereupon we let
go another, our only remaining one, and prayed that it would hold until
dawn. Daylight and our remaining anchor broke together, and we did a
sort of steeplechase out to sea amongst cruel-looking rocks; how we got
the _Guinevere_ through safely I don’t know, for it was a job I should
not like to tackle again with a full crew and steam under me; certainly
no vessel less nimble than a racing yacht could have managed it. We
were now, however, without an anchor, and therefore it was necessary
for us to make a port in order to get one. We did not like ports
either, for fear of being prevented from going to sea again. An anchor,
however, we must have, and accordingly we stood away for the Clarence
River.
We fell in on the way with the _Spray_ and Captain Slocum, who hung
on to us one night while he slept. The _Spray_ was nearly as broad as
she was long, immensely strong and almost unsinkable. Slocum’s usual
method of navigation was to sail his boat all day, run off shore,
heave-to, and sleep all night while his vessel bobbed about like a
cork. A very strong southerly current on this coast had prevented
him from doing this, as his ship lost nearly as much in the night as
he had gained in the day. He had left Sydney some time after us and
missed the storm, but he had not been delayed by calling at ports on
the way. In the morning we parted from the _Spray_ and Slocum, he to
continue his voyage round the world--which, in passing, I may mention
he successfully accomplished--and we to make the Clarence River.
Heaving-to off that river we signalled for an anchor, but the signalman
chose to believe we had made a mistake and sent a tug out instead; so
accordingly we went into port, where we decided to remain for a day or
two.
Here we received a telegram from William Whitten, telling us a cutter
he was taking to New Guinea had been wrecked on the coast, and asking
us to wait for his arrival in a coastal steamer, after which he would
come on with us. We therefore waited, being only too glad to have
additional hands. Whitten had seen the report of our arrival at the
Clarence River in a telegram in the daily papers; we did not at all
approve of the interest our movements now seemed to be exciting, and
decided that, once we were clear of this port, we should touch nowhere
again until we made Cooktown. Whitten appeared, accompanied by a seaman
named Otto, whose surname I never knew; we then unostentatiously
slipped out to sea again, making rapid progress north, with Whitten and
his man taking one watch and Burton and I the other.
We made Cooktown without any further misadventure, but for one little
incident, breaking the monotony of the trip; that was a narrow escape
we had of being piled up by Whitten on the coast one dark night, in
consequence of his crediting the _Guinevere_ with only doing eight
knots an hour instead of nearly twelve. I happened to go on deck
before dawn, and found Otto trying to persuade Whitten that a dark
mass right ahead of us was land, while the latter maintained that it
was impossible and must be a cloud. I thought it was land, too, and
insisted upon standing out to sea again until dawn; when daylight came
there, sure enough, was a high cape not more than a couple of miles
off. Whitten had already piled up four vessels in the course of his
career, through a mixture of recklessness and cocksureness, he never
believing in danger until too late.
At Cooktown we found the whole community preparing for wild junketings
in celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee, and the Warden invited Burton
and myself to participate; the festivities were to culminate in a
banquet at night. Cooktown is like all isolated hot towns in one
respect, and that is, the inhabitants take very little interest in
anything outside their own little parochial affairs, and, as most of
them possess “livers,” they accordingly quarrel furiously: even when
a man is of a peaceful nature, his wife is not, and the rows of the
woman involve the man. One had hardly been introduced to a man for
half an hour before he was explaining what awful people so-and-so,
and so-and-so were--his pet _bêtes noirs_; and, later on, one had
a repetition of the same thing from so-and-so. The Warden told me,
though, that at the great banquet all personal differences were to be
buried for good: Subcollector of Customs, Inspector of Police, bankers,
merchants, parsons, doctors, lawyers, post and telegraph officials,
schoolmasters and ship captains, in fact, all the rank and fashion of
Cooktown were to foregather and coo like doves.
The Warden was a very fine old fellow; he had at one time been British
Consul in Persia, and he was also the first man to hoist the British
flag in New Guinea prior to the Proclamation of the Protectorate;
he was now over sixty, but his back was as straight and his step as
firm as a man of half his years; he was also full of quaint stories
of the experiences of his youth in Persia and Arabia; he possessed,
however, a peppery temper and had a long-standing quarrel with one of
the local celebrities. The hour of the banquet arrived and the guests
assembled; speeches were made, and toasts were drunk--many toasts and
many speeches--and as the champagne mounted to excited brains a few
quarrels began, but were always promptly suppressed by the Warden in
his capacity of President, and each time we sang “God save the Queen.”
Burton leant over to me and whispered, “There is going to be a damned
fine fight before this _chivoo_ is over, there is too much bad blood
among them for a tea-party,” and I acquiesced. After the feasting was
over and we had dispersed about the room, something seemed to occur
which caused all the old feeling in the room to burst out; the parsons
fled through the door, the Warden seized his ancient foe by the neck
and, throwing him on the floor, sat across his chest and bumped the
man’s head up and down, whilst every other man sought out his own
particular enemy and thumped him. Burton and I got quietly to one side
and looked on; the police arrived and peeped in, but, upon seeing their
Chief and the Police Magistrate involved in the turmoil, discreetly
withdrew. At last peace was restored, and the guests at Cooktown’s
historical banquet departed to their several homes, while Burton and
I went off to the _Guinevere_, wondering what stories the _élite_ of
Cooktown would manage to invent by way of explanation to their wives. A
sorry looking lot of men we met next day, and they all showed a marked
disposition to avoid the subject of Jubilee banquets.
Within the course of a day or two Burton left in a steamer bound for
Sydney _en route_ for England, and upon his departure I sailed for
Samarai, still accompanied by Whitten and Otto. No sooner had we left
behind us Cook’s Passage in the Great Barrier Reef than we fell into
a howling south-easter, a wind almost dead in our teeth; Whitten,
after one night’s experience of it and the _Guinevere’s_ behaviour in
a big head sea, refused to go on, and consequently I had to put back
to Cooktown to land him and Otto. The _Guinevere_ had, to a man not
acquainted with her peculiarities, an alarming habit of going through,
instead of over, a head sea; as a matter of fact, she was just as safe
with her decks a foot under water as she was with the sea like a duck
pond; but Whitten would not believe it.
At Cooktown I shipped three Queensland natives as crew and sailed
again; when well out to sea, however, I discovered that only one was a
sailor and therefore able to steer, the other two had been stockmen on
a cattle run. I accordingly abandoned my intention of making Samarai
direct, and, instead, made for Port Moresby, where I hoped to pick up
a crew of New Guinea boys, and beat down the coast to Samarai. After
a few days we sighted Port Moresby just as the sun was setting, and
I obtained capital cross bearings on an island to the east of the
entrance of the harbour and upon Fisherman Island; the night was dark,
but I accepted the chart as accurate, and, being confident of the
correctness of my compass bearings, I decided to risk running through
the passage in the outlying reef by compass. Suddenly crash we went
upon the reef; we launched the dingey, a new one purchased in Cooktown,
and I told the boys to place a kedge anchor in her and drop it away in
deep water, in order that we might kedge the cutter off; they promptly
dropped it into the dingey and stove in her planks, rendering her
useless. The wind then began to get up, bumping us further and further
over the reef, until, to my surprise, I found that the vessel was
bumping less and rising upon an even keel again. After two or three
hours of this, we suddenly slipped off into deep water upon the Port
Moresby side; and again making sail, stood into the harbour, though
the _Guinevere_ was leaking badly from the bumping she had received.
When I got into Port Moresby, I found that the tide, which had enabled
me to get clean over the reef, was the highest ever registered there,
the decking of the wharf having been on a level with the water. Here I
found Inman with a new schooner of Messrs. Burns, Philp and Co., and
to him I took my chart and cross bearings and asked how on earth, in
the position in which they had placed me, I had managed to get upon
the reef. Inman’s explanation was very brief: namely, that the eastern
island, upon which I had taken one of my cross bearings, was half a
mile out of position on the Admiralty chart.
I also came across Farquhar, who told me he was acting as an accountant
in the Treasury, but that he had been offered a good position with
Burns, Philp and Co., at Samarai, and was only waiting for an
opportunity of getting there. Accordingly I offered him a passage
in the _Guinevere_, with all its excitements thrown in. He told me
Ross-Johnston wanted to go to Samarai too, as Sir William MacGregor had
come to the conclusion that an extensive knowledge of modern languages
by a private secretary was not sufficient to outweigh the fact of his
being ignorant of all the practical duties of his office. Farquhar
therefore went off in search of Ross-Johnston to tell him that they
could both sail with me.
The morning following my arrival in Port Moresby, I was standing on
the wharf watching a carpenter doing some work on the deck of the
_Guinevere_, when I heard a Scotch voice behind me. “What do you call
that pipe, Mr. Monckton?” I turned round, and saw Sir William MacGregor
standing there and pointing to the stove pipe issuing from the deck of
the _Guinevere_. “That, sir,” I said, “that is a stove pipe.” “Stove
pipe, do you call it? It looks more like a cigar holder!” I felt rather
hurt at this reflection upon the _Guinevere_, and replied, “Well,
sir, stove pipe or cigar holder, it answers the purpose for which it
was placed there, and that’s all I want.” “Very true, man,” said Sir
William; “if men and things do their duties, it is all that is required
of them. Come to Government House this afternoon, I have work for you.”
[Illustration: PORT MORESBY FROM GOVERNMENT HOUSE, SHOWING THE
GOVERNMENT OFFICES]
I went to Government House, where Sir William told me that Moreton
was very seedy and wanted leave of absence, but that he had not been
able to let him go until the Government had found some one to take
his place, and that he intended to send me to relieve him. I told
Sir William that I had grave doubts about being able to perform the
duties satisfactorily, whereupon he told me that he had the same doubts
himself, but that I seemed to be the best that offered. “Get awa’, man,
get awa’; the sooner ye are in Samarai, the better pleased I’ll be
with ye.” Consequently I left Port Moresby on the following morning,
accompanied by Ross-Johnston and Farquhar. Some years afterwards
I read, in the _Illustrated London News_, an account written by
Ross-Johnston of the voyage of the _Guinevere_ from Port Moresby to
Samarai; it was eventful in its way, but I have not space for it here.
In 1897, I took up my new duties at Samarai, which were the beginning
of my official life in New Guinea.