My first business now, was to try and find out the nature of the
rapid and deadly disease from which the people were suffering, and
with this object in view I consulted the priests of the Sacred Heart.
The only London Missionary Society man in the district had just left
for England. The priests were looking after his Samoan and Fijian
teachers, who were all blue with funk, and were also supplying them
with medicines. I believe four of the teachers died during the
epidemic, as well as a number of the European members of the Sacred
Heart. I soon came to the conclusion that the source of the infection
was in the water supply of the villages, and ordered that all water
for the domestic use of the villagers should be drawn from the San
Joseph river, or other big streams, where pollution was practically
impossible, instead of from pools near the river. Threats, punishment,
persuasion, nothing was of any avail; still the people would persist in
drawing and drinking the water from the pools to which they had been in
the habit of going.
I rushed through the district with a flying patrol, and made the lives
of the village constables and chiefs a burden to them; but still the
natives died like flies, and still they drank from the pools. In each
village I made the village constable give me a list of houses in which
bodies had been buried, and then set the police to prod with their
bayonets through the earthen floor until the corpses were discovered;
whereupon, we made the householder disinter them and plant them in
the cemetery; if there were no cemetery, I laid one out for them. I
sent every householder off to gaol in whose house I found a corpse,
until Basilio sent to say there would soon be a famine in the Station;
then, to prevent this, I levied toll of food upon the villagers, and
plundered their gardens if they did not pay. But still the people drank
from the pools, and sickened and died.
I called a meeting of chiefs and village constables, and threatened
and prayed them to stop the burial in the houses and the drinking of
polluted water. “We can’t stop it,” they said; “you are strong and
wise, tell us what to do.” I racked my brains, and at last I thought I
saw a way out. “Take this message to your people,” I said: “I am going
myself to poison every hole from which they draw water, except running
streams, and they can come and see me do it; after that, I shall burn
down every house in which a man is buried, and if I find five corpses
in one village, I shall burn the whole village. In the meantime they
are all to leave the villages, and camp in shelters half a mile away.”
Then I wondered how I could make the people believe that their wells
and pools were really poisoned; hunting amongst my supply of drugs,
I found about half a pound of Permanganate of Potash, a few grains
of which, placed in a bucketful of water, is sufficient to produce a
red colour. “Ah,” I thought to myself, “now for a little sorcery.” I
carefully filled up two wine glasses, one with Ipecacuanha wine, an
emetic; the other with water, coloured by Permanganate to a passable
imitation of it. Then I returned to my meeting of chiefs and village
constables, carrying the glasses in my hands.
I addressed the meeting in this way. “You see these glasses? They
contain a virulent poison, the poison I am going to put in the wells
and pools. I am going to drink one glassful and Maina, v.c., the
other; but the strength of my magic will save us from dying, though
you will be able to see what a bad poison it is.” Maina was not at
all keen on drinking his brew, but as his brother v.c.’s all told
him to rely upon me, and I told him he would get the sack as a v.c.,
and gaol for disobedience of orders, if he did not, he plucked up
courage and swallowed the nauseous draught with many grimaces. I then
swallowed mine, passed round cigarettes, and awaited developments. In
twenty minutes Maina asked whether I was certain of the efficacy of my
protection against the poison I had given him, as he was feeling very
ill. I explained that I was, and that he would be quite safe, unless
at any time he had neglected his duties as a v.c.: should he have done
that, he would be extremely ill for a few minutes, and then get quite
well again. Somehow or other I think Maina must have been remiss in
his duties, for in a few minutes he was most uncommonly sick, after
which he rapidly recovered. The meeting then dispersed, fully convinced
that my threat of poisoning the water was no idle one, and prepared to
explain to the people the colour and nature of the poison I intended
using.
Village after village I then visited, drawing from each well or pool
a bucketful of water, which I coloured red with Permanganate and
exhibited to the natives: after which, I made some hocus pocus passes
with my hands over the pool or well, whilst I poured in the mixture,
dismally chanting all the time, “Boney was a warrior, Boney was a
thief, Boney came to my house and stole a leg of beef.” My voice, I
may remark, is not a melodious one. At very big pools I constructed
a little boat of leaves--like the paper boats made by children--and
placing a little gunpowder in it, I focussed the rays of the sun
through one of the lenses removed from my field-glasses, until it
exploded in a puff of fire and smoke. Then, gazing severely at the
village constable and assembled villagers, I would groan loudly, and
explain that the poison devils I had placed in that particular pool
were of the most malignant description, and I hoped that they would not
be fools enough to allow them to enter their systems through the medium
of the water. “Not much!” was the equivalent of their reply; “we are
not going to risk magic of this sort. No! Not even if we have to walk
miles for our water.”
I sent a report to Blayney describing the symptoms of the sick, and
asking for advice. Blayney was a doctor, as well as R.M., the only one
besides Sir William MacGregor in New Guinea. He replied, “I can’t come
to help you, I am tied up by this infernal Treasury work; there is no
doubt, I think, that the illness is enteric fever. Look to your water
supply and drive the people out of the infected houses.” I had already
done all this, so I merely continued patrols to make sure that the
natives were carrying out my orders; the immediate effect being, that
the sickness slackened and the deaths dwindled down to almost nothing.
“Thank Heaven,” I thought, “I have got it under.” Suddenly a fresh
outburst occurred, sweeping like a wave with awful virulence through
the people, who were now mostly camped away from the villages.
At my wits’ end, I again assembled the chiefs and village constables.
“What foolery are you up to now?” I asked. “Are you drinking the
water from the poisoned wells, or burying the dead in the villages or
houses?” “Oh no,” they said, “we have obeyed you most strictly; also we
have carried out a precaution suggested by the sorcerers.” “What was
that?” I demanded. “They have told us that when a death takes place,
the body of the dead person is to be licked by all the relations.”
Frantic with rage, I jumped to my feet and howled for the Station
guard. “Strip the uniform and Government clothes off these men, and
throw them into gaol, until I can devise some means of bringing them
to their senses,” I yelled, as the police came running up. Pallid with
funk, and loudly protesting that they were good and loyal servants
of the Government, my village constables and chiefs were hauled
away. Soon, from the villages, came streaming in the wives, friends,
and relations of the imprisoned men, weeping bitterly and praying
me to release their husbands, fathers, brothers, etc. Then I took
counsel with Basilio. “The men are not to blame,” he said, “it is the
sorcerers; you will do no good by punishing the v.c.’s and chiefs, who
are trying to help you, merely because they are fools.” “Very true; but
how can I catch the elusive sorcerer?” I remarked. “The v.c.’s are
badly frightened now,” said Basilio; “scare them a little more, and
they will drop a hint as to the whereabouts of some of them.” I had
my v.c.’s brought back, and threatened and abused them alternately;
they all--with one exception--squirmed, lied, and tried to excuse
themselves, and all denied knowledge as to the whereabouts of the
sorcerers. “How then did you receive the message from them, as to the
licking of the bodies of the dead?” I demanded. Dead silence and more
squirms.
Then I turned to the one man who had not lied and excused himself.
“What have you to say for yourself?” “Nothing: if you choose to put me
in gaol, put me there; but since you came, I have most strictly carried
out the orders of the Government, and I have had no communication
with sorcerers; neither have I had any deaths in my village since you
closed the wells; also the people of my village have not licked the
bodies of the dead.” Three minutes’ inquiry confirmed the truth of this
village constable’s statement: whereupon, I returned his uniform, gave
him a brass bird of paradise badge (the badge worn on the caps of the
constabulary), and told him, that for the future he was senior village
constable for the district with double pay, and when he visited the
Station he should have the right to sleep in the constabulary barracks,
instead of in the visitors’ house. The name of this man was Aia
Kapimana, and on his leaving to return to his village, he called up a
youth of about fourteen: “My son,” he proudly said; “I give him to you
as a servant.” I didn’t want a servant, but not wishing to offend the
man, whose feelings I had already most unjustly hurt, I said I would
keep him for a while. The boy had the same name as his father, “Aia,”
and was a nice smart-looking lad; I sent him to join Poruta.
This youth remained in my private service for many months, accompanying
me afterwards when I left the Mekeo district to go to the South-Eastern
Division; I found him to be always loyal and obedient. After he left
my service and returned to Mekeo, he was engaged as a private servant
by my successor, Amedeo Giulianetti, who was a man, like myself, very
severe upon the sorcerers: unfortunately for him, however, he was never
very popular with the constabulary. One night Giulianetti was sleeping
in the house of the local London missionary on the coast, about twenty
miles from Mekeo Station, while his police and Aia were sleeping in
native houses some distance away. To Aia, came a sorcerer and said,
“You are to shoot your master dead; if I could shoot, I would do it;
but as I cannot, you must; and if you refuse I shall strike you dead.”
Aia took a police rifle and, accompanied by the sorcerer, walked up
to the Mission house; Giulianetti was sleeping with a lighted lamp
on a chair beside his bed; Aia blew out Giulianetti’s brains, then,
firing another shot at him, fled--as did the sorcerer. The sorcerer,
in fording a stream during his flight, was seized by an alligator and
severely mangled before he could escape from its jaws; believing then
that the alligator was on the side of the Government and that escape
was hopeless, he made no further effort to get away, and was secured
by the police. Aia either gave himself up to them or was secured by
the fathers of the Sacred Heart Mission. These, shortly, were the
facts elicited at the trial of Aia and the sorcerer, both of whom were
sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.
At the time the murder took place, I was stationed at Cape Nelson on
the north-east coast, and amongst my constabulary were some of the
men of the Mekeo detachment, who had been transferred to me there. I
have no hesitation now in saying, that I am convinced that all the
facts as to how Giulianetti was murdered were not elicited at the
trial, and that I believe some of Giulianetti’s police were concerned
in it. Firstly, it was not clear how Aia got the rifle and cartridges
without the consent and knowledge of the owner; secondly, Aia swore
that Giulianetti was sleeping with his mosquito net raised and a
lamp burning, thereby allowing Aia a clear view of him. Now, it is
utterly impossible for a European, in the Mekeo district, to sleep
without a mosquito net; and to say that a man could sleep unprotected,
in a room with a light attracting mosquitoes in myriads, is rank
absurdity. If the mosquito net was down--as I am convinced it must
have been--Giulianetti’s body would not have been visible to the man
shooting at him, and some one must have raised it to allow Aia to aim.
The shot, according to Aia’s statement, was fired from the doorway;
this must have been true, for otherwise, the flash would have scorched
the mosquito net or bed-clothes. Two shots were fired: now, Aia was
a first-class shot, and had--according to his own statement--killed
Giulianetti with the first; why, therefore, did he remain to reload his
rifle and fire again, after the first shot had alarmed the house? That
second shot came from a rifle other than Aia’s I am convinced. Another
point to be considered is, that when the sorcerer first commanded Aia
to shoot Giulianetti and threatened him with death if he disobeyed, why
did he not appeal for help to the police, who were his friends, and
some of whom came from his own village?
My own opinion is that Aia did tell the police, and that some of them
were concerned in the murder. This view of mine was shared by my own
police at Cape Nelson, and by nearly every member of the constabulary
with whom I talked. Another reason I had for thinking that the Mekeo
detachment--at that time--would not have been above making away with
an unpopular officer was, that on one occasion, while they were under
Bramell’s command, the whole lot had arranged to fire at him on the
parade ground during inspection. When the time came, however, only one
man carried out the plot by raising his rifle, firing, and missing him
at about ten paces; Bramell had then deliberately walked up to the man,
taken his smoking rifle from him and led him up to the police cell,
into which he had shoved the offender, after which, he had resumed his
inspection of the squad. Bramell punished the man afterwards, but,
as he was in hot water at the time at Headquarters, did not report
the incident for fear of--somehow or other--being blamed himself. The
punishment he allotted to the culprit was a peculiar one, and one
that I cannot say commended itself to me, richly though the mutineer
deserved it. At that time there were in the Station two dark cells, one
of which was never used, for the reason that on a previous occasion a
man had hanged himself in it, and the police thought it was haunted by
his ghost; Bramell gave his would-be murderer twenty-four hours in it,
telling him that if he lacked company, he could call the ghost.
The police of Mekeo Station had a most extraordinary yarn of a strange
happening there, on the night of Giulianetti’s murder (Amadeo, they
called him). A group of them were sitting talking together, when one
man jumped to his feet, pointed to Giulianetti’s house and exclaimed in
surprise, “When did Amadeo return?” They all looked, and saw that the
house, which had been in darkness, was lit up, and that Giulianetti,
clothed in his usual white clothing, was seated in his chair in the
open place between the rooms, looking across the parade ground. They
all ran up to the house, to ask him how and when he had returned, and
where his police were. As the men went up the steps of the house, it
became plunged in darkness: puzzled, they called to Giulianetti and
struck matches, and to their surprise could not find him; the lamp,
which a few seconds before had apparently been burning brightly, was
dead and cold. This story was told me by Sergeant Kimai, who was not an
imaginative person.
The attempted murder of Bramell by his police was afterwards the cause
of a serious quarrel between him and me, and for a time we were not
on speaking terms, though we lived in the same house and dined at the
same table. I did not know that Bramell had not reported the matter,
and one day, in the course of casual conversation with the Government
Secretary, referred to it. Mr. Musgrave pricked up his ears, asked me
several questions, and then ordered me to put in a written report; I
demurred, pointing out that the alleged shooting at Bramell by the
police was all hearsay and Station gossip. Muzzy insisted; whereupon
I made out a garbled version of the affair, to which Bramell had no
difficulty in giving a flat denial. He, however, then took it into
his head that I had been trying to get him into trouble, and “words”
ensued, which resulted, as I have said, in a total split between us.
The quarrel ended in a funny way. I had a temporary Port Moresby
boy engaged as a servant, who of course knew of the split between
Bramell and myself; coming home one day unexpectedly, I found the
young reprobate smoking one of my pipes and brushing his hair with
my brushes, whereupon I cuffed him soundly. The boy whimpered, and
I told him to shut up or he would get a little more; this had the
desired effect, and I left. Mr. Musgrave at this time made pets of
the Hanuabada boys, as they were called, and always came down like a
sledge hammer on any officer who struck one, for whatever cause. After
I had gone, the boy sat down outside, waited until he saw Mr. Musgrave
in the distance, and then set up a terrific bellowing, as though he
had been half murdered. Bramell heard the howls and asked the boy what
the row was about; the boy said I had hit him, and he was howling to
attract Mr. Musgrave’s attention: Bramell promptly cuffed the howler
into silence, and kept him with him until the Government Secretary was
safely out of sight. I heard of the incident from the boy, and when
Bramell came home that night and went to his side of the verandah,
I called after him, “Bramell, have a drink?” He came, had a drink,
remarked that, “We were two fools,” and buried the hatchet.
After these digressions I must return to my epidemic and the Mekeo
district. I released my chiefs and v.c.’s, after uttering the most
blood-curdling threats as to what would happen if they indulged in any
more corpse-licking. Again I raced through the district with a patrol,
burying the dead and harrying the natives, as well as snapping up a
sorcerer here and there. On an average, the patrol covered twenty miles
a day, until the men and myself were as thin as catgut, and as tired
as a sweated seamstress, from work and worry. We had our prisoners,
sorcerers principally, handcuffed on to a chain; one evening, so tired
out were we, that I commanded a halt in the middle of a grass patch and
told the men to sleep where we stopped. Looking through my men for some
one to take charge of the prisoners, I found they were all so utterly
done up as not to be relied on to keep awake for half an hour. Aia was
the only fresh person, he having sat in charge of our effects, while
the constabulary and I worked. Calling Aia, I told him that, seeing
the state the patrol was in, I meant to handcuff him on to the chained
prisoners, in order that, if during the night they tried to bolt, he
might alarm us. Aia protested, but handcuffed he was: in a few minutes
I noticed that his hands were so small that he could slip them out of
the handcuffs, accordingly I had one clasp of the handcuffs fastened
to the prisoners’ chain and the other locked round his ankle, and I
also lent him my heavy hunting knife--a most formidable weapon. Then we
all slept, the dead heavy sleep that only a tired lot of men know.
Shortly before dawn, one of my men awoke and noticed that Aia and the
prisoners had disappeared. He at once awakened the camp, and spreading
out in every direction like spokes from the hub of a wheel, one of the
men ran into the chain gang, who were soon secured again. They had
watched us go to sleep, and had waited until Aia slept also, when they
had suddenly seized him and gagged him with their belts--disgusting
things those belts were too--then, muffling the clink of the chain with
the remainder of their belts, they had slunk away, carrying Aia upside
down with them. He had the extreme pleasure of hearing them discuss how
they would cut off his ankle with my knife to release themselves, when
sufficiently remote from the camp. This incident showed me clearly that
it was high time we returned to the Station; for when a patrol is so
worn out that it cannot find a man to mount guard, it is evident that
its usefulness has ended.
At Mekeo it was my custom to spend a couple of hours on Saturday
afternoons attending to any simple surgical cases, or broken bones,
brought to me by the village constable. Sometimes I got one that was
anything but simple. For instance, on one occasion a native came in
with his shoulder all plastered up with mud and leaves; he told me
that he had fallen from a cocoanut palm the week before and hurt his
shoulder, and that it was so painful that he could not sleep at night
and that he meditated suicide. In passing, I might remark that a
favourite New Guinea method of suicide is to climb a cocoanut tree, and
then drop head first to the ground. I examined the shoulder and found
it badly dislocated, but apparently nothing broken. I struggled with
that shoulder for a good hour, the man’s howls meanwhile alarming the
country for a couple of miles around; then I gave it up in despair.
“Are you not going to mend me?” he asked in an injured tone. “Mend you,
yes,” I replied. “But I shall have to hurt you a bit, and you make my
head ache with your howls.” “I won’t say another word,” he said. Then
I sent to the whaleboat for blocks and tackle, which I attached to his
arm, after lashing him firmly to pegs driven into the ground; in five
minutes, by the aid of that tackle and some lusty police, the shoulder
was back in position, and during the whole process the man did not give
so much as a whimper.
Another native came in, and exhibited a lot of nasty long gashes about
his arms, body and head. “How did you collect these?” I asked. “I got
clawed by a bush alligator,” he replied. “Don’t tell me silly lies,
there are no alligators in the bush; alligators live in the water,” I
retorted. “There are water alligators and bush alligators,” he said;
“bush alligators have sharp claws and climb trees.” “Do you mean
iguanas?” I asked; “the reptile whose skin you use for your drums?”
“No, I don’t,” he said; “the skin of the bush alligator is no good for
drums.” I dressed the man’s wounds; and when next I met the Sacred
Heart missionaries, I asked them whether they had ever heard a native
yarn about a bush alligator. They had frequently heard of it, but
had never seen the beast. Old Bushimai, chief of the Binandere, once
showed me a lot of scars about his body, which he had got as a young
man in an encounter with--as he put it--a devil. Bushimai and his wife
were walking through the bush, he being unarmed (I may say he was an
enormously powerful man); suddenly the wife, who was following, gave a
yell, and, turning round, he saw her in the grasp of a beast strange
to him; he got her away, but in so doing sustained the scars he showed
me. Bushimai’s description of the beast was like nothing either on the
earth, in the sea or sky; he was, however, perfectly satisfied with his
own opinion--that it was a devil.
One day, whilst I was engaged attending to my patients, an old woman
appeared, followed by a man hobbling along with the aid of a stick; the
woman staggered under an enormous bunch of bananas, which she dropped
at my feet. “There,” she said, “you cut my husband with your knives
and cure him, and I will pay you these bananas.” I looked at the man,
and found he had elephantiasis in one limb, which was swollen to an
enormous size; I shook my head, and told the woman that I could do no
good. “Yes you can,” she said; “I have heard of wonderful things that
you have done. I suppose the payment is not enough, but we have nothing
else with which to pay you.” Basilio at last made the woman understand
that there were things beyond my power, and this was one; and, to make
clear to her that it was not for lack of adequate payment, we made her
presents of turkey-red twill, tobacco and beads, and also gave her
husband an adze, the tool most prized by the Mekeo natives; but in
spite of all, it was a very sad couple that went away. A leper once
came to me, and he also had to depart disconsolately.
One of my difficulties at Mekeo was to make the natives keep the roads
and tracks clean; each village was compelled by law to keep the roads
throughout its own lands clean and open, and each village did its best
to dodge doing so. One village in particular gave me a lot of trouble;
say what I would, and do what I could, they would not clean their
roads. Mohu was the name of this village. At last, in exasperation,
I threatened, that if at my next visit the tracks were not cleaned,
I should shoot the village pigs. Time went on, I visited Mohu again
and found the roads worse than ever. I caught several of the prominent
men, and cursed them; then I said, “You know what I told you last time,
that I should shoot your pigs if you did not obey me; now I am going to
shoot your largest and best pig, as a warning that I am in earnest. At
the end of a week I shall return and kill the rest, unless you clean
the roads.” The police drove out an uncommonly fine pig; I pointed it
out to the chief and said, “I am going to kill that pig.” “Kill it,
if you want to,” he said contemptuously. Shot the pig was, and I left
the village, the chief and natives not appearing to worry much about
the killing. Hardly had I gone a mile, before a fat Belgian brother of
the Sacred Heart Mission came running after me. “For why?” he asked,
“for why, Monseigneur, have you slain the pig of my lord the Bishop?”
I sent humble apologies to the Mission, and offers of payment for the
pig; the apologies were accepted, the payment they declined, telling
me that they hoped I should succeed in making the lazy Mohu villagers
clean their roads. Jumping with temper, I returned to Mohu, arrested
the chief and all his most prominent followers, and sentenced them to
a month’s gaol with hard labour. “We can only get three days’ simple
imprisonment for neglecting to clean roads,” he complained. “Yes, you
villain,” I replied, “but you are now getting a month’s hard labour, as
accessory before the fact, to the stealing of a pig; and unless your
roads are cleaned within a week, I’ll forget my judgment and make it
six months.” Cleaned those roads were, within the week.
Mohu was a village that had always given a great deal of trouble; once
it even went to the length of fighting Sir William MacGregor. A Station
of the Sacred Heart was established near it, and the people, not caring
about sending their children to school, tried to drive the missionaries
away by depositing filth close to the Mission house. I cured them of
that trick, by making the prominent men clean up, and carry away the
mess, with their bare hands; they were all very angry, but one man
especially so. Father Victor told me that one day afterwards, when he
was walking towards the village, this particular individual slipped out
in front of him from behind a bush, with bow bent, and arrow pointed
straight at the father; he yelled at the man, who then apologized and
explained that he thought the father was I. I sent for the man, and
gave him three days’ solitary confinement on a pumpkin diet. “How do
you like that?” I asked him at the end. He candidly said that words
could not express his opinion of it, that he had never felt so lonely
nor so empty in his life before. “Very good, then,” I told him, “don’t
you play the fool any more with your bow and arrows, or you will get
ten years of it.” Some time afterwards I made this individual a
village constable, which position he filled in a very satisfactory
manner.
Mekeo Station was absolutely the worst place for snakes I have ever
known; they were there in all sizes, from pythons, that came after my
fowls, to deadly little reptiles, that coiled up in bunches of bananas.
If one sent a boy up a cocoanut tree, he had to beat at the bunches of
nuts with a stick, before putting his hand in, to make certain that
there were no snakes concealed. It is a fact, not generally known, that
snakes climb trees in exactly the same manner that they go along the
ground: they don’t coil round them, as picture books show, but I think
they must grip the bark by elevating their scales; when they want to
come down, they merely release themselves and fall like a wet piece of
rope. I’ve only known two men in my life who really liked snakes: one
was Armit, and the other was a camp-keeper he had, called Rohu. Once
at Cape Nelson, I got my knee-cap knocked to one side, and went up by
boat to get Armit, who was then stationed at Tamata, to fix it up for
me. Rohu and Armit had half a dozen tame snakes, which used to crawl
over their beds and chairs, in fact they were everywhere; if either of
their owners wished to sit in a canvas chair, very frequently he had to
pick a snake out of it first. To the contempt of the pair, I declined a
bed in the house in favour of a bunk in the police barracks. “They are
quite harmless,” said Armit. “That may be,” I remarked, “but if I must
have bed fellows, I prefer constabulary to snakes.”
It was quite a common thing for the store-keeper on the gold-fields
to have a small python--one eight or ten feet long--in his rice
store, to keep down the rats; these pythons usually became very tame.
I remember one big fellow, that my police caught in the Mambare and
sold to Hancock, a store-keeper at Tamata. Hancock got this particular
snake very tame; it would come to his whistle for a bowl of tinned
milk, and it used to climb about the beams in the roof of the store.
At that time, there was working in the Mambare district, a miner named
Finn, whose habit it was to come in once a year, pay his debts, have a
week’s wild drunk, buy a case of brandy and some hams, and return to
his claim again; he then usually camped a few miles from the store, and
lived on raw ham and brandy until it was done, by which time he was
seeing horrors. One day, I was sitting writing at a table in Hancock’s
store--he and I being the only men in it at the time--when Finn came
in on his annual visit; he handed over his gold to Hancock, asked for
his bill and a drink, then, seeing me at the table, came and sat down
opposite, and said, “Give me a new Miner’s Right, Warden.” As I began
to fill up the form, Hancock’s snake swung down from the rafters, and
waved its head about over the table, looking for somewhere to alight.
Finn’s jaw dropped, his eyes bulged in his head; then he got up, and,
without a word, left the room, leaving his drink untasted behind him.
I finished his “Right,” and Hancock, turning from his desk with Finn’s
account in his hand, asked, “Where has Paddy gone?” “I don’t think he
liked your snake,” I replied, “he seemed to think it wanted to kiss
him.” Hancock waited for about half an hour, then sent up to the rival
store to find out whether he was there, only to learn that Finn had
called his native boys and gone straight back to his claim.
The Binandere or Mambare people are the only natives in British New
Guinea who have no fear of snakes; I have seen them snatch up a
poisonous snake by the tail, and crack its head against a tree.
Most of the Port Moresby snakes are harmless, but I remember one of
Captain Barton’s men being bitten by a snake, and as a precaution he
filled the man up with whisky, and ordered the remainder of the police
to keep him walking about, and not on any account to allow him to go
to sleep. Unfortunately he forgot to fix a time limit; the result was,
that on the following morning, the feeble voice of a man bewailing
a cruel fate was heard, and it was discovered that the constabulary
had kept their unlucky companion walking up and down the whole night
long. Upon the man recovering from the comatose slumber into which he
promptly fell when released, he vowed that in the future--if he were
bitten by fifty snakes--he would keep it quiet, as no snake bite could
be half as bad as that cure.
At Mekeo I got my first taste of black-water fever, that strange form
of malaria of which the cause is not known; and in which quinine--the
sovereign remedy for ordinary malaria--is poison. I have never known
black-water outside the Mekeo and Mambare districts in New Guinea; the
name describes one symptom, another is a constant retching and vomiting
of blood. Basilio and the police did all they possibly could for me,
which of course, except for the constant attention, did not amount to
much; hour after hour the constabulary relieved one another, holding
my head and supporting me during the violent paroxysms of vomiting.
One funny little interlude occurred, though. The sorcerers in the gaol
inquired the reason of the silence and gloom over the Station, and were
told by the warders that I was dying; whereupon they set up a loud
chant of joy. The constabulary, sitting in a circle round my bed, heard
the chant; several of them got up, went to their rifles, took out the
cleaning rods, and paid a visit to the gaol, from whence soon came the
wails of suffering sorcerers.
“What can we do?” said Basilio at last; “you die fast.” “Dig my grave
under the flagstaff, where I can hear the feet of the men at drill,”
I replied. Then appeared Fathers Bouellard and Vitali, whom Aia in
despair had gone to fetch; they brought me white wine and bismuth.
“You are in time for the funeral, Father,” I gasped out, “but that is
about all.” “Oh, my friend,” said Father Bouellard, “I want but one
little second at the end, and your soul is safe; but we are not going
to let you die if we can help it; Sister Antoinette is very skilful
with medicines, but as she cannot come here, we will take you to the
Mission.” The police picked up my camp bed and carried me to the
Mission house, where they nursed me back to life. When stronger, the
police carried me to the Monastery at Yule Island, where Dr. Seligman,
who was then visiting New Guinea with Professor Haddon’s party, came
along and completed the cure, and also told me the name of the cheerful
complaint from which I had been suffering. I had enteric some months
later, but I call that an infantile thing alongside black-water.
After my convalescence, I was had rather badly one night by the Father
Superior, who, by the way, was a most charming man, and was afterwards
sent as Parish Priest to Thursday Island. The fever had left me very
weak and with a terrific appetite, which the good fathers did their
best to appease with all they had to offer. Having slept some time, I
woke with a horrible sinking feeling in my tum-tum. “Faith,” I thought,
“I should like a good stiff whisky and soda.” I made my way to the
Father Superior’s room and, rousing him up, explained that I had a
dreadful feeling of coldness in my tummy, and inquired if he could give
me something to allay it. “Ah,” he said, “I know the very thing for
you.” No sooner said than done, and he handed me a tumbler half full of
a horrid tonic draught of iron and other beastliness, which I had to
drink; then I slunk back to bed. Long afterwards I told Ballantine how
I had aroused the worthy priest to get a drink, and received a bolus
instead. He meanly told the Mission, for he said that the story was too
good for them to miss. “Why, Mr. Monckton,” asked the Father Superior,
“why, if you wanted cognac, did you not say cognac?”
When sufficiently recovered, I took passage in one of Burns, Philp’s
vessels, the _Clara Ethel_, which Inman now commanded. At Port Moresby
I reported myself to the Government Secretary, told him the tale of
my adventures, and praised the priests of the Sacred Heart as a fine
lot of men--my predecessor at Mekeo had always quarrelled with them.
“I did not know that you were a Roman Catholic,” said Mr. Musgrave,
when I had finished. “I am not,” I replied; “I am a Churchman, and a
Churchman I’ll die; but if all Roman Catholics were like the members
of the Sacred Heart Mission, there soon wouldn’t be any other Church
in the world.” Muzzy was a dissenter of some sort, and regarded the
Church of Rome with aversion. “Get away and report yourself to his
Excellency,” he growled. I went over to Government House, and reported
myself. Sir William told me to send for my things, and take up my
quarters at Government House; then he said, “I had a cough like you
once, a liver cough; I got rid of it. Captain Jones got one; he died.
You should go away for a change, but I can’t spare you at present; you
had better take a trip to Thursday Island in the _Merrie England_: she
is taking the Judge west, and then going on there for coal.”
[Illustration: VILLAGE NEAR PORT MORESBY]
When the _Merrie England_ sailed, I accordingly went with her, and
the trip proved to be a truly dreadful one. We had on board one
mid-wife and two domestic servants, who had been in the service of the
wives of some of the Government officers in Port Moresby; as each of
these women took up a cabin, and we were--with the exception of the
Governor--carrying our full complement of people, the accommodation
was limited. I occupied a settee in the cabin of Commander Curtis; a
settee that, when we struck really bad weather in the Gulf of Papua,
I abandoned for the security of the floor. No ship that I have ever
known could roll like the _Merrie England_: one night, whilst we were
at dinner, she rolled so prodigiously as to tear the saloon tables
from their fastenings, and rolled tables, men, table gear, and food
backwards and forwards across the cabin, nearly crushing the lives
out of Judge Winter and myself, who happened to be on the lee side
when the first roll came. The sea-sick white women heard the din, and
thought the ship was sinking; accordingly, they rose from their bunks,
attired merely in their night things, and rushed into the saloon, where
of course they were promptly swept off their legs into the chaos of
swearing men and smashing crockery. That night was the sole occasion
upon which Judge Winter was known to use bad language; but I think even
a judge is justified in making remarks, when he finds the edge of a
heavy table, crowned by a dozen men, resting on his liver. At last we
disentangled ourselves, dragged out the shrieking women, and shoved
them back into their cabins. “Why the blank blank don’t you go and
attend to those women?” yelled the skipper at one of the stewards, who
was grovelling about amongst the mixture on the floor. “I’m looking for
my teeth, sir,” he said. The unfortunate man had lost his false teeth
in the excitement.
At Daru we found De Lange, Assistant R.M., carrying on Bingham Hely’s
duties; Hely, R.M., at the time being on leave, and occupied in dying
in a Thursday Island hospital. De Lange was afterwards drowned in the
mouth of the Fly River, his whaleboat having capsized in a bad tide rip
some four or five miles from land: his police started to swim for the
shore, carrying him with them; but finding that--hampered by him--the
police could not make headway against the tide and current, and that
probably all would be drowned, he ordered them to release him, and,
bidding them “Good-bye,” put his hands above his head and went down
like a gallant man. Cruel, certainly, was the toll New Guinea took of
her first officers.
Returning from Thursday Island, the _Merrie England_ landed me again
at Hall Sound, where, after having sent in to the Station for my
police, I returned to my duties. On the first parade after I got back
to the Station, I addressed my men as follows: “That you are a lot
of rogues and villains, I am convinced, and also that you have got
fat from idleness during my absence; but what steel instruments do
you want most?” “Razors,” said some; “scissors,” said others. “Ah,
you scoundrels, I can read your hearts even in Thursday Island.” Then
solemnly I presented each man with a razor and a pair of scissors. “If
ever you are sick again and the prisoners sing,” said Keke, “we will
pull their tongues out.”