At this first parade, after my return to Mekeo, when I was inspecting
the men I found one of them all gashed about the face and body.
“What have you been up to?” I asked; “more pine-apples?” He grinned
sheepishly, and explained that whilst I was away his grandfather had
died, and so he had cut himself all over with broken glass as a sign
of mourning. “The Queen is your grandfather and grandmother and all
the rest of your relations,” I told him, “and you belong to her. The
next man I catch cutting himself about as a sign of mourning will get
something to mourn for.” Exasperating people they were, one never knew
what they would do next; Kipling’s definition of a native as, “half
devil and half child,” is a very true one.
The signs of mourning were almost as varied as the tribes themselves,
and it may be of interest if I mention one or two of the other methods
in vogue. The Goodenough Islanders had a horrid habit of cutting off
their finger joints with bits of obsidian, _i.e._ volcanic glass:
until, after a sickly season, the hands of some of the men were merely
bleeding stumps. The Suaus cut down the cocoanut trees belonging to the
deceased, until Sir William MacGregor passed a Regulation forbidding
it; and the Kaili Kaili used to hurl themselves face forward into the
sea, and inhale salt water until they nearly burst their lungs.
One of the troubles of the Mekeo Government Officer was a periodic
friction between the members of the Sacred Heart and London Missions,
concerning the limitations of their respective districts. Sir William
MacGregor had, with his usual perspicacity, foreseen the likelihood of
difficulties and sectarian disturbances, should rival denominations
come into contact in the same village or district, and had made a
Regulation allotting each Mission a special sphere of influence. The
London Mission being first on the field, and scattering its men over
a very wide stretch of coast line, received the lion’s share; its
territory extended from East Cape in the extreme east, to the Dutch
boundary in the extreme west. The Sacred Heart Mission had merely Yule
Island, containing a very small population of natives, at most a couple
of hundred; one tiny village on the coast, and the actual district
of Mekeo; it did not, however, include Maiva, which was in the London
area. The Sacred Heart, having occupied all its available territory,
wished to extend its borders, and cast envious eyes upon the large
unoccupied portions belonging to the London Mission: then, having sent
in its priests, it began work in those parts. Bramell, acting under
orders from Port Moresby, promptly pulled down their houses and ordered
them back.
I was appointed to the district just while matters were at this stage.
“What are we to do?” the priests asked me. “Our orders from home are
to extend our work, but the Government will not let us.” “I am very
sorry for you,” I told them, “but I cannot help you, unless you can
persuade the London Mission to resign their right to some of the coast
line.” “They won’t do that,” said the priests. “Then I am afraid I must
pull your houses down, if you trespass on their country.” Those brave
Frenchmen then set to work to bore a road right into the heart of New
Guinea, amongst the wildest of the tribes, and seek converts there.
When I left New Guinea, they had penetrated with their road, which
was fit for horses, for over sixty miles into the interior, and had
found in the mountains a large field for their labours. I have known
many brave men in my time, but none more brave than those priests and
their ascetic chief, the Archbishop of Navarre. The Archbishop, and the
fathers that I knew, are now all dead; may their souls enjoy a peace
and rest that their bodies never knew. “Let the Sacred Heart of Jesus
be everywhere known,” was the motto of their order; rather should it
have been, “Courage, mon ami, it is the will of the Good God,” the
words for ever in their mouths in times of trouble and tribulation.
I am not a Roman Catholic, but one of my most pleasant memories of
the Mekeo district is of one occasion, when I had halted my men on a
track, and the Archbishop and Father Bouellard passed by. “Stand to
your arms!” I yelled at the men, as I saw the good old man coming.
“Shoulder!” “Present arms!” As the rifles clashed up into the salute,
the Archbishop stopped. Looking at us, he said, “My blessing will not
hurt the Protestant soldiers.” So he blessed us and passed on.
While I was at Mekeo, Sir William MacGregor departed from New Guinea.
The Government Secretary sent a notice to all officers within call,
inviting them to come and bid him farewell. On account of some district
trouble I was prevented from going, but fortunately had an opportunity
of bidding him good-bye on board the _Merrie England_, which touched at
Hall Sound on the way to Thursday Island. I was not sorry afterwards
that I had missed the official ceremony at Port Moresby, as I heard
that most of the men present had broken down lamentably, and wept as
the vessel steamed away. Many an Administrator has since come and gone
in New Guinea, but none have ever left such an awful void behind them
as Sir William MacGregor’s departure created; and I doubt whether any
other will ever do so again.
About my only relaxation from duty at Mekeo was an occasional
afternoon’s shooting with the fathers; never shall I forget those
shooting parties, or the way my sides ached from laughing, the first
time I took part in one. Pigeons of all descriptions--from the enormous
plumed Goura, down to a little dove--were very plentiful; and there
was also a lake, a few miles from Mekeo Station, which simply swarmed
with wild geese, duck, and all kinds of water-fowl. Game formed a
pleasant change from the everlasting luke-warm tinned meat, of which
my usual fare consisted. We assembled at one of the Mission Stations,
when I naturally thought we should at once get to business; not so,
however. First, we must drink success to the chase; then each good
father possessed a dog of sorts, which he had taught to do all kinds of
tricks, and which the proud owner of the mongrel then exhibited; after
that, I had to inspect and admire each man’s gun. “My God!” I exclaimed
softly to myself, as in turn I examined the rubbish in which the owners
took such pride. The good fathers were all deadly poor; twenty pounds a
year was all they had, with which to find everything--food, clothing,
and all else; and their guns were the cheapest and vilest of Belgian
make, things I expected to see burst every time they were fired. My
gun, a plain old seven-guinea Bland’s keeper, which had seen many years
of hard service, rose tremendously in my estimation, after looking at
those Belgian affairs; for it, at all events, could be trusted not to
blow my head off; its very plainness, however, did not appeal to my
brother sportsmen, for though they politely praised it, I could see
that the tassels and brass of their gimcracks were more to their liking.
At last, all preliminaries completed, we started, under the command of
Father Bouellard; one good father merrily chanting a gay little French
song in praise of La Chasse, and another one tootling on a round horn.
One member of our party wore an enormous old-fashioned hunting knife,
gaily caparisoned with cords and tassels, the sort of thing that might
prove useful for cutting collops off a wild boar; we, however, were in
search of feathered game. When we had left the village a few hundred
yards behind us, Father Bouellard sternly ordered silence, and we all
began to walk with the stealth of wild Indians; the fathers marched
with unloaded guns, I was pleased to observe, as I frequently found
myself looking down the muzzle of the gun of the man in front of me,
or being poked in the ribs by that of the man behind. Suddenly Father
Bouellard stopped and held up his hand; we all halted, and I peered to
find out what he had discovered, but could see nothing except a little
dove--hardly bigger than a tom-tit--sitting on a bough across the
track. “A pigeon,” he whispered, in a voice of suppressed excitement.
He pulled a cartridge from his bag, inserted it into his gun and,
cocking the hammer, raised the gun to take aim; bang went the gun into
the air and away flew the tiny dove. “My gun was too quick,” remarked
Father Bouellard. “Well, I’m d--d!” I quietly exclaimed to myself, as
the other sportsmen accepted the statement in perfect faith. At the
sound of the shot, the assorted mongrels tore yapping into the scrub,
while the horn tootled, and their masters shrieked shrilly for them to
return. The excitement having subsided, we resumed our stealthy march.
Again our leader held up his hand, and loaded his gun; the squalling
of a parrot pointing out the quarry this time. The father fired, the
parrot fell squalling from the tree, the mongrels dashed at the bird,
one of them securing it; the sportsmen hurled themselves upon the curs,
each man grabbing his own: while the one with the bird fled into the
bush, hotly pursued by its master and Father Bouellard. I could not
help; I could only roll against the nearest tree and nearly suffocate
with laughter. At last the dog with the bird was caught, the mangled
remains of the parrot dragged from its mouth, and once more we resumed
our march. Father Bouellard having blooded his gun, took his place in
the rear, and another sportsman took the father’s place, I declining
the honour. By the time we reached the lake, the fathers had collected
a large assortment of birds; most of them either nearly blown to bits
by being shot sitting at the closest possible range, or torn to pieces
by the curs. There was not a game bird in the lot, for the mongrels and
the horn saw to it that they were kept a good mile away.
Upon our arrival at the lake, while the Mission boys and my police
prepared some canoes for us, Father Bouellard and another priest went
off to stalk some wood-duck sitting in a tree. Presently there came a
shot, followed instantly by the screams of an excited Frenchman; the
men with me listened, and then exclaimed in horror, “He says the good
father is shot!” We tore off to the spot, only to find Father Bouellard
sitting on the ground, ruefully contemplating the tip of a blackened
and bleeding finger; while his companion wept, screamed, and embraced
the father alternately. I examined the finger, and found the damage was
but slight. It seems that the two sportsmen had exchanged guns for a
shot; sneaking under the wood-duck, his companion was taking aim, when
Father Bouellard noticed some dirt on the muzzle of his cherished gun;
he was in the act of brushing the dirt off with his fingers, just as
that infamous piece chose to go off “too quick” again. Separating into
canoes, we soon got a heavy bag of duck and pygmy geese, the latter
quite the best game bird in New Guinea. The method of the fathers
was simple in the extreme: they merely sneaked their canoes up to
within thirty or forty yards of a flock of feeding duck, and blazed
both barrels into the brown of them; after which they would put in an
excited, gesticulating, and noisy half-hour, chasing and shooting the
cripples. I concealed my canoe in a patch of reeds, and had lively
sport with the birds which the fathers kept putting up and driving over
my gun. Excited, tired, and laden with duck, we wended our homeward
way; and once more songs in praise of La Chasse and the tootling of the
horn enlivened our weary footsteps.
At the end of some four or five months, the Mekeo district was in a
condition of satisfactory order; the roads were clean and in good
repair, the sickness had apparently disappeared from among the
villagers, the bodies of those that did die, or were killed by snakes
or in other ways, were buried in the cemetery, and the sorcerers were
hiding their diminished heads. Then I got enteric myself, and narrowly
missed pegging out, after which I sent in my resignation. One bout of
black-water, another of enteric, with a few odd doses of malaria thrown
in, were bad enough; but when they were coupled with work amongst a
tribe I disliked, I thought it was too much of a good thing altogether.
Leaving Mekeo in due course, I went again to the Eastern Division,
where I recruited my health, cruising with Moreton in the _Siai_.
Whilst I was thus occupying my time, Shanahan, one of Green’s
successors in the Northern Division, died of combined malaria and
dysentery. Already since Green’s death, Stuart-Russell, Chief
Government Surveyor, and Butterworth, Commandant of Constabulary, had
put in a term there and been invalided. During one of my periods of
absence from Samarai with Moreton, Judge Winter came there looking for
me to succeed Shanahan, the Judge being then Acting Administrator.
Fortunately for me, I was away: therefore, as the position had to be
filled at once, he appointed Armit; I very much doubt whether, had I
been sent to the Mambare in my then state of health, I should have
lasted six months.
Returning from the Mambare in the _Merrie England_, Judge Winter
sent me off in her to relieve Campbell, R.M. and Warden for the
South-Eastern Division, the easiest and healthiest division in the
Possession. With the exception of the mining work at Woodlark Island,
my duties consisted of sailing from one small island to another and
hearing petty cases; there was not an island in the division that one
could not walk across in a day, and, if one wished, the boat could be
anchored every night.
A. M. Campbell, the man I relieved, possessed a perfect mania for
office work, tidiness, and writing reports; if a constable cut his
toe or a prisoner sneezed, Campbell could manage to make a two-page
report of the incident. When the _Merrie England_ reached Nivani, the
Government Station for the Division, we found the patrol vessel, the
_Murua_, had been wrecked. Campbell was no sailor, and his crew were
fair-weather men; so accordingly, on a strong gale coming up, they had
anchored in the harbour and made for the safe security of the shore.
The _Murua’s_ anchor chains were nasty galvanized things, which in her
peaceful summer cruising had never met a strain; consequently, when she
had to ride out a moderate gale, they snapped, and she--being without
a crew---was blown up on the nearest reef. A white prisoner at Nivani,
named Clancy, upon the return of calm weather, had dived and tacked
canvas over the vessel’s holes; then it was found that, by fitting her
with some extra pumps, manned by relays of constabulary, she could be
towed to Samarai by the _Merrie England_, where she could be repaired
upon the slip.
I was not pleased, as I saw the unpleasant prospect looming before me
of having to do the district work, in the absence of the _Murua_, in
a whaleboat; the whaler would be safe enough, but when under sail one
could have no awning, and would therefore be alternately grilled by
the sun and wet through by every passing shower. The _Merrie England_
sailed, leaving me to my work. The first thing to which I turned my
attention was, as usual, the detachment of police: the Commandant,
while there, had fallen them in with the travelling patrol, but in
three minutes had dismissed them to their barracks in despair; they
were all, with the exception of a corporal, locally recruited by
Campbell and trained by him. They were an uncommonly clean and tidy
looking lot, very polite and attentive, excellent body or house
servants, and taught to salute on every possible occasion; a man could
not even hand one a cake of bath soap without saluting as he gave it,
and again when he left. “Corporal,” I asked (a corporal being in charge
of the ten men forming the detachment), “what are the hours of parade
here, and how often do you have musketry instruction?” “I fall the men
in once a week,” he replied, “and we never have musketry instruction.”
“My stars!” I said; “what do you teach them?” “I teach them right-hand
salute, left-hand salute, officers’ and general salute,” was the
answer; “that’s all Mr. Campbell wants.” I groaned. “You will fall them
in at half-past six every morning, and at five o’clock every evening
whilst I am here,” I ordered, “beginning this evening.”
I went to the first parade, and found that--beyond saluting--the
men knew absolutely nothing of drill: their rifles were spotlessly
clean, but several were out of order, and the men ignorant of the
component parts of their arms; most of them had never fired a shot.
When I snapped out an order, as I had been accustomed to do with my
hard-bitten devils of the Mekeo detachment, instead of a brisk movement
following it, they would shiver and wilt like a lot of scared valets.
“My Faith, what would you be like in a fight?” I asked them. “There are
no fights in the south-east,” they said, “but we should like to be made
the same as the other police; we are ashamed now when we meet them,
and the corporal cries.” “Well he might,” I remarked, “for such a lot
of sleek pussy cats I have never yet met.” Then I put them through a
sweating hour of recruit drill; the corporal, who had once known his
work, soon remembered the drill, and began to take hold again. Clancey,
the white prisoner undergoing sentence for manslaughter, was a handy
man, and, after I had once shown him how to take to pieces and assemble
a rifle, I made him take a class and instruct each of the police how
it was done. When I left the south-east, I had those men cocking their
caps at a rakish angle, and walking with a very passable imitation of
the swagger of the fighting constabulary of the mainland.
Campbell had been in the Customs at Tonga; he was, while there,
a Corporal, a Colonel, or a Field-Marshal in the King of Tonga’s
“Guards,” I never quite knew which. He had a wondrous uniform which he
had brought from there, and which he donned on state occasions: Moreton
and Armit swore that from it, they never could decide whether he was
horse or foot, sapper or gunner; and the confusion was made worse by
the addition of epaulets and spurs. Anyhow, it was a harmless conceit,
amused Campbell, and hurt no one else: perhaps it is rather unkind of
me, while peacefully farming in New Zealand, to laugh at a man still
writing interminably in a New Guinea office; my only excuse is, that I
am trying to picture New Guinea as I knew it.
Among my office papers were numerous applications, from miners on
Woodlark Island, for leases and reefing claims, also notices of pending
litigation; they were all nicely docketed and filed, with copies of
acknowledging letters, but apparently nothing had been done, and the
men were getting frantic. I put in a month visiting islands, and then,
not caring to carry my Court Registers and books in the whaler, I went
to Samarai, to find out what had become of the _Murua_. I discovered
that she had been handed over to Symons, who in his turn had handed her
over to carpenters for repairs: the carpenters--being busy--had merely
planted her on a mud bank, where she lay, with her decks warped and
ruined by the sun, and her hull full of borers; clearly she was now
going to be a three months’ job. After cursing Symons very thoroughly,
and the carpenters as well, I sought out Moreton and reproached him.
“I can’t help it,” he said, “I have nothing to do with the vessel, and
Symons is now so spoilt by Headquarters that I can do nothing with him.”
I learnt from Moreton that he had some awkward work on hand in the
Trobriands and at Ferguson Island, for which he had not a sufficient
force: I accordingly suggested that, if he would take me to Woodlark
Island first to hold my Warden’s Court, I would then join him with my
police, who by now were fairly efficient in their work; a plan to which
he readily agreed.
Moreton and I therefore sailed in the _Siai_ for Woodlark, where
we put in a strenuous time. He took all the police court, civil
and native cases for me; whilst I held the Warden’s Court, dealing
with multitudinous applications and technical work. Moreton’s time
was limited, as native affairs in his own district were pressing;
accordingly, I sat night and day, to get through the work in the
Warden’s Court. I had no clerk or assistant, and as there were many
forms to be filled up and signed, all of which carried a fee for
which receipts had to be given, I stationed my corporal at the door
of the Court room, with his cartridge pouch open. As I granted each
application and wrote out a receipt, I told the applicant the amount,
and that he was to pay the corporal at the door, for I had no time to
count money or weigh gold-dust; and it says a lot for the honesty of
those men, that afterwards when I weighed the gold-dust and counted the
cash in the corporal’s pouch, I found the amount to be in excess of
what was due. A sweet time that excess of money gave me later on with
the Treasurer; having sent it all through with the duplicate receipts
and returns, he demanded why they did not tally. When he received my
explanation that it was due to over-payment by miners, he wanted to
know why I had not returned the surplus to the owners; and when I
explained that I did not know who the owners were, he censured me for
the “grave laxity in supervising payments of money due to Government.”
While we were at Woodlark, I had one very unpleasant case. The miners
presented me with a petition, praying for the removal of a man named
Brown, who was a drunken dissolute ex-pugilist, and who spent his time
in jumping the claims of weak or elderly men, and then demanding a
payment to quit; if they did not pay, he would post a notice stating
the title to the claim was in dispute, which thereby caused all work to
cease until the next sitting of the Warden’s Court, sometimes months
later. I told the petitioners that I could not deport a man, but would
call on Brown to find sureties to keep the peace, and that, if he
failed to find them, I would send him to gaol. Sending for Brown, I
read the charge to him, and told him I wanted two men to go bail for
him to the extent of fifty pounds each, otherwise I should be obliged
to gaol him. He produced a hundred pounds and said, “Hold that.”
“That’s no good,” I said; “I want two men to guarantee you, and I will
give you till to-morrow to find them.” Brown went off, but could find
no one to stand bail for him; so, in a rage, he went to a tent owned
by a man with a considerable knowledge of medicine, and in which was
stored the entire stock of drugs in the island, and smashed the lot. I
saved him from being killed by the irate miners, and then clapped him
into irons.
On the morning I left the mining camp, Brown’s irons were taken off;
whereupon he flung himself flat on his face and refused to walk to the
vessel, saying, that if I wanted him, I could carry him. I appealed to
the miners. “Drag this blighter to the _Siai_ for me, I’m not going
to struggle with him myself and I don’t like having him taken by the
native police.” “Set the niggers on the ----,” was their answer,
“we won’t touch him.” In obedience to my order, the police dragged
Brown--kicking, fighting, and swearing--some hundred yards from the
camp; then I had him set down. “Brown, will you come quietly?” I asked.
“No, you ----,” he answered. “Corporal, load your rifle,” I said. The
corporal loaded it. “Sit here and guard that man, and blow his head off
if he moves,” came next. Brown looked rather disturbed; then I took the
remainder of my men away, and instructed them in the manner in which
the frogs’ march is performed. Returning to Brown, I nodded my head at
the men, and said, “Frogs’ march!” In ten minutes he was praying for
mercy and release; I gave him fifteen minutes of it, and then he walked
with us like a pet lamb.
When we reached the _Siai_, he was put in the hold where there were a
couple of native prisoners; afterwards he had the ineffable impudence
to send in a report to Port Moresby, complaining about Moreton and
myself having put him in with natives, and quoting in support of his
complaint, the treatment he had received in English and Colonial gaols,
where he had never been put with niggers! Brown only spent a week in
Samarai gaol, for a vessel then left for the Mambare, and he begged
Moreton to procure his release and let him go thither. “Better let
him go,” said Moreton, “he is only a nuisance here, and he can’t have
a worse time than sweating for gold on the Mambare. We can let Armit
know what he is like and there are enough hard cases among the Mambare
diggers to make things hot for him, if he plays any tricks there.” “All
right,” I said, “let him go; I don’t care where he is so long as he is
out of my Division; but you and I will have to go bail for him.” We
released Brown, signed bail, and escorted him upon the vessel bound for
the Mambare, where he was afterwards murdered by a boy he had brutally
misused. His reputation was so bad on that gold-field, that white men,
conversant with all the facts of the murder, declined to give evidence
against the boy.
At the Woodlark Island gold-field, at that time, a very peculiar
position existed. The Mining Act, under which I worked, was an Act
adopted from Queensland, where all lands not alienated were vested
in the Crown; certificates of titles, rights or leases in Queensland
being granted upon that assumption. In New Guinea, however, under our
constitution, all lands not purchased by Government, not gazetted
as waste and vacant, were held to belong to the natives; no land in
Woodlark had been purchased by the Crown, nor had any been taken over
as waste or vacant. The position therefore was, that on behalf of
the Crown, I was granting titles to land to which the Crown itself
held no title. As a matter of fact, I believe that if the natives had
had sufficient knowledge, they could have capsized the title held by
every miner and mining company in Woodlark, and could have entered
into possession of all the claims or mines; moreover, they could do so
still, unless those lands have subsequently been acquired by the Crown.
There was at that time no Government Officer stationed on Woodlark
Island, and, before we left, I received a petition from the miners,
praying that the headquarters of the Division should be moved to that
island. This petition had my entire sympathy. It was utterly absurd
that an island carrying two hundred European inhabitants, and some
hundreds of natives, should be passed over in favour of a tiny islet,
the population of which consisted solely of Government servants. I put
in a recommendation to this effect, which was referred to Campbell
on his return, and pooh-poohed. Later, however, the Government was
compelled to adopt my recommendation, and transfer the Station from
Nivani to Woodlark.
From Woodlark, Moreton and I sailed for Ferguson, Trobriand, and
Goodenough Islands; then--having completed certain police work--we
returned to Samarai. From thence I took the _Murua_ (her bottom now
having been repaired) to Nivani, there to complete refitting. Hardly
had I got her fit for sea again, when the _Merrie England_ appeared,
bringing the new Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George Le Hunte, also the
R.M., Campbell, back from leave.
[Illustration: SIR GEORGE LE HUNTE, K.C.M.G.]