Sir Francis Winter made me Assistant to Russell in the Survey Office,
whilst awaiting the Governor’s return: I spent my time drawing maps
and copying plans, and I also began a feud with the Government Store
that lasted during the whole period of my service in New Guinea.
Russell wanted about half a dozen tin-tacks for something or other,
so I sent an orderly down to the Government Store with a note, asking
Chester to give them to him; the boy came back saying that he could
not get them. I went myself to the Store, and found Chester suffering
from a bad attack of liver. “What’s the matter, Chester, why won’t
you give me the tacks?” “Go to blazes,” said Chester, “and send me
a proper requisition.” “Surely you are not going to put me to all
that trouble for the sixteenth part of a penny?” I asked. “I am,” he
said. I went back to the office and drew out a requisition for half
a dozen tin-tacks, value one-sixteenth of a penny, and took it back
again. “No good,” said Chester, “requisition for supplies for the
Survey Department must be countersigned by the Government Secretary.”
I said nothing, but wasted an hour in getting hold of the Government
Secretary, who was engaged when I wanted him. “What tomfoolery is this,
Mr. Monckton?” said Muzzy, as he glared at my requisition. “What do
you mean by wasting my time like this?” “Chester has a liver and is
full of red tape this morning; he won’t give me the tacks without a
formal requisition,” I replied. Muzzy dashed his signature at the foot,
and off I went again and handed the requisition to Chester without a
word, though inwardly I was seething. “No good,” said Chester, “this
requisition should have been signed by the head of the department
requisitioning, not by you; Russell must sign it.” I took it back
without a word, and went to Russell. “You are a damned fine assistant,”
remarked that impatient individual; “do you want the whole day to get
me half a dozen tin-tacks?” In lurid language I explained to him what
had taken place, and Ballantine, hearing the fuss, came in and laughed
at me. Russell signed the requisition, which I took, and went off
again. Ballantine, who was chuckling to himself at some obscure joke,
then said he would walk down to the Government Store with me to see
the end of it.
Arrived there, I chucked the requisition at Chester with, “Now you
attend to that at once, you blighter.” Chester took it, and Ballantine
led him on one side and whispered to him. “I can’t accept this
requisition,” said Chester. “Why?” I asked, hardly trusting myself to
speak. “Because there is a Treasury Regulation that once the Government
Secretary’s signature has been attached to a requisition, no addition
or alteration shall be made without his previous approval. Russell’s
signature is an addition.” Ballantine rolled over screaming with
laughter. Again I took the requisition to Muzzy, and in a cold hard
voice explained the position to him. He looked at my face, said not
a word, and confirmed the alteration. Back I went to the Government
Store, and again handed Chester the requisition, Ballantine still being
there. “I can’t fulfil this,” said Chester. Boiling with indignation,
I blurted out, “Why, you blank blank scrim-shanker? If you fool me any
more, I’m going to the Administrator.” “Oh, go to him,” said Chester,
“but if you use that language here, I’ll send for the police.” Off I
bolted to Sir Francis; he listened to my heated complaint with his
usual quiet smile, looked at the requisition and smiled again, then
wrote across the form, “Government Storekeeper, fulfil this requisition
at once. F. P. W., Administrator.” Back again I went to Chester. “Now,
my beauty, you trot out my tin-tacks, unless you want to face an
inquiry for disobeying orders.” Chester took the form and wrote across
it, “Tin-tacks not in stock of Government Store.” Fortunately I was
struck speechless, and before I recovered, Ballantine seized me by the
arm and said, “Come along to lunch with me, Monckton; His Honour is
coming, and I’m certain he will be pleased to hear the end of this.”
As we went off to lunch, we met Russell also going to his. “Perhaps,
Monckton,” said Russell, “when you have finished gallivanting about and
amusing yourself, you won’t mind returning to your duties.” “Blank!
Blank! Blank!” “Hush! Hush! Monckton,” said Ballantine; “Russell for
the time being is your superior officer.”
In due course Sir George Le Hunte returned; and I was promptly
appointed to the new North-Eastern Division, being, however, given
three months’ leave of absence before I took up my new duties.
Naturally, I decided to spend my three months away from New Guinea; I
therefore arranged with Ballantine that he should send me out in his
Custom’s boat to a steamer, that was to call off the Port with a mail,
in the course of a few days.
[Illustration: MOTUAN GIRL]
Captain Fielden, who had been on Lord Hampden’s staff in Australia,
and had been persuaded by Murray to come back with Sir George for a
holiday, took it into his head to come and see me off. The day and
the ship arrived: I started off in the Custom’s boat, in the face of
a strong south-easter; the boat shipped a lot of water, and Fielden
complained about it. “Bail out the water,” I said to the coxswain, who
was a smooth-water sailor. That worthy promptly pulled the plug out of
the bottom of the boat, in order to let the water run out. I did not
notice what he was doing, until the boat was half full, and then the
plug was lost. Accordingly, we completed our journey with a man sitting
in the bottom holding his thumb in the hole, Fielden protesting all the
time that we ought to turn back. I knew better, however; for I felt
convinced that if I missed that steamer and returned, something would
turn up to find a new job for me, and therefore cost me my leave. I
have not seen Fielden again from that day to this; but when I returned
from leave, Ballantine told me he had growled that I had done my best
to drown him and a boat’s crew.
The day before I left Port Moresby, a full parade of the constabulary
was ordered by the Governor, for the presentation of medals to Sergeant
Sefa and Corporal Kimai, these two men having been recommended by Sir
William MacGregor to the Home Authorities as deserving of it. Sir
George Le Hunte presented the medals: then, to the amazement of the
assembled officers, he also presented one to the officer at that time
in command; the medal having a bar with “Tugere” stamped upon it, Sir
William MacGregor’s fight with the Dutch natives in the west. Sir
George (who of course had not been present at the fight) had himself
recommended the Commandant for it. The medals had originally been
authorized by the Home Authorities, and were only to be granted for
“good conduct” on the part of a private, or some act of conspicuous
gallantry on the part of an officer; and it was the sole reward that
any officer or private could expect to receive, and was intended by
Sir William MacGregor to be a very high one. Sir George Le Hunte, by
his hasty though kindly-meant action in granting it unearned, brought
it into contempt: no officer afterwards ever recommended a man for
the medal; and upon this officer’s wearing it in South Africa, the
War Office compelled the Colonial Office to order its recall as
unauthorized. In this way was lost the only decoration to which the New
Guinea Constabulary could aspire.
On my return to Port Moresby, I busied myself with preparations for
the new Division; Sir George, with his usual kindness, putting me up
at Government House. He told me that during my absence the _Merrie
England_ had visited Cape Nelson, and that he had selected a site for
the new Station. “You will have your work cut out for you at first,”
he remarked; “the people are as wild as hawks, and carry spears twelve
feet long.” Another time he said, “I have made up my mind that before I
leave this country, the north-east coast shall be as orderly and safe
as any other portion of the Possession. I trust you to make it so.”
I went to Barton, who was now Commandant, about my police. I had
asked for, and been allotted, ten men; but after looking through them
and finding that they were mainly recruits--and poor ones at that--I
pointed out that I had a tall order on hand and wanted the best of
trained men. “His Excellency thinks that it is better for you to
recruit your own men on the north-east coast,” said Barton; “anyhow,
these are the best I can do for you.” “It is insanity for Monckton to
recruit his own men on the north-east coast,” said Judge Winter when he
heard of the plan; “it will be the Tamata business over again.” Barton
then said that, as he could not spare the best of the police, he would
give me fifteen men instead of ten, mainly recruits, but including
Keke, Poruta, and one other of my old Mekeo men. I got my men detailed,
and set Keke and Sara (the corporal) to work, to lick them into shape
as quickly as possible. I then found, that recently the constabulary
had been increased in strength; but, as for a considerable time no
new rifles had been bought, they were very badly armed with old and
worn-out Sniders. Barton said an experimental lot of Martinis had been
ordered from England, but would not arrive for some time. I examined
each man’s rifle separately, and groaned over them all. “I may have
fifteen privates,” I then said to Barton, “but after they have been
in action for ten minutes, I guarantee I won’t have more than half of
them able to fire their rifles.” Eventually Barton gave me an order
to the Headquarters’ Officer for a dozen condemned rifles, from which
I could take parts as I wanted them, with which to mend my rubbish.
The ammunition supplied to me was apparently sufficient in quantity,
and I thought of even quality. Government Store had, however, run out
of rifle oil; but I managed to cadge a little cylinder oil from the
engineers of the _Merrie England_; we afterwards made oil from pig’s
fat, and stinking stuff it was; but it answered the purpose in the
tropics.
At last I was ready; and on the 1st June, 1900, the _Merrie England_
pushed her way through a mass of canoes, full of howling men, women,
and children, wailing for their relations in the constabulary, whom
they thought they were never to see again. Arriving at Cape Nelson,
my three months’ stores, men, etc., were landed; a flagstaff was
then erected, the Station ensign hoisted, the men of the detachment
presented arms to the Governor, and, dipping her flag, away sailed
the _Merrie England_, leaving us in the midst of a howling mob of
excited natives.
[Illustration: SIR G. LE HUNTE PRESENTING MEDALS TO SERGEANT SEFA AND
CORPORAL KIMAI]
[Illustration: KAILI KAILI NATIVES]
A hut had been constructed by the natives out of sago palms, for which
the Governor had left payment on his last visit, and in it the police
and I now took up our quarters. It was situated in a grass patch of
about an acre, on a bluff overlooking the harbour: bush extended from
the grass patch along the top of a shelving plateau of about thirty
acres in extent. After the _Merrie England_ had departed, I turned my
attention to the defence of our post: we had three months’ stores,
but a safe water supply was essential, and the Governor in selecting
the site had quite overlooked this. At last we discovered a spring
some few hundred yards away in the bush; so I accordingly had a
four-hundred-gallon tank containing rice emptied, and then re-filled
with water from the spring, in order that, should we be forced to
fight, we should not be entirely without this necessary. Our first
night at Cape Nelson was a very uncomfortable one: natives howled, blew
horns and beat drums in the bush all round us the whole night long;
whilst a large fleet of canoes assembled and hovered under the bluff on
the seaward side, until we shifted them by dropping a few rifle shots
into the water near them, and also shooting over them one of half a
dozen rockets I had begged from the Commander of the _Merrie England_.
The following morning I decided to build a stockade round our hut,
inside which no native was to be permitted to enter. Upon some hundreds
of men appearing, we arranged with them--through Poruta, who spoke a
language which a few of them understood--to bring us posts and timber
for the stockade, telling them we wished to erect a fence to keep pigs
in. We paid them for each piece of timber brought, in beads, or broken
glass bottles, which they used for shaving: some men we kept and paid
for digging a series of holes all round the camp. When all the timber
was in, we got the natives to plant the posts of the stockade; and
before they quite realized what was occurring, they had built for us a
solid wall of about four feet high, which an hour’s toil on the part
of the constabulary converted into a twelve-foot stockade. Then and
only then, the police and I breathed freely and felt fairly secure: we
now had a little fort, three months’ provisions, enough water to last
a month, and we felt fairly confident that we could hold our new home
against anything that might come against us.
The next day I thanked my stars for that stockade. The constabulary had
purchased from the natives a supply of betel-nut and prepared lime,
which they chewed; then, to my horror, I suddenly discovered that, with
the exception of three men, the whole squad was stupid and drugged from
the effects of some narcotic contained in the lime. The three men had
been on guard, and had not used either the betel-nut or the lime. I
thrashed the slumberers, but without effect; then I administered huge
doses of castor oil and calomel, which in a few hours got in its work
and restored them to their senses. A very frightened lot of men they
were when they recovered, and discovered the helpless position they had
placed us in.
Corporal Sara now came to me with a fresh alarm. “How many cartridges
have we got, sir?” he asked. “About three thousand rounds,” I replied.
“Have you looked at the boxes?” he queried next. “No,” was my answer,
“they are ordinary service cartridges, I suppose.” “They are nothing
of the sort,” said Sara; “with the exception of the rounds in the
men’s pouches and one box of 320, they are all cartridges condemned
by Captain Butterworth years ago. They burst the rifles when you
attempt to fire them.” I examined the boxes, and found they were filled
with a patent cartridge made by Eley Brothers, which was supposed
to consume its own case when fired. I made certain experiments with
these cartridges, by firmly securing rifles to trees and firing them
with a string attached to the trigger, and found that they did one of
three things on every occasion: either the explosive consumed the case
entirely and generated gases which blew the breech block clean out of
the rifle; or it did not completely consume the case and effectually
blocked up the cartridge chamber with the remains; or it left the brass
case of the cartridge and cap stuck firmly to the fire pin of the
rifle. If I could have got hold of the Government Storekeeper then, I
would have shot him, and cheerfully have hanged for doing it. Fifteen
men left among some thousands of the supposed wildest savages in the
world, and the larger portion of our ammunition more dangerous to the
user than to an enemy!
“The fever medicine,” said Sara, “is as bad as the cartridges; the
tablets go right through the men like stones.” I examined some of the
quinine tablets, which were supposed to be made by some people called
Heron, Squire and Francis. I took two, soaked them for a night in
whisky, and they were as solid as shot after it; then I put another
couple into dilute hydrochloric acid, and they resisted that. I believe
the things were made of plaster-of-Paris or cement. Fortunately I had
a couple of ounces of Howards’ Sulphate of Quinine, and half a dozen
bottles of Burroughs and Wellcome’s Bisulphate of Quinine in tabloids,
in my private stock, and could carry on with that. The iodoform
supplied for wounds was just as bad: if you put it on a wound, the
thing promptly festered, suppurated, and got angry-looking. Afterwards
I took a bottle of the filth to Sydney, had it examined, and was
told that it was composed of chalk and boracic acid, scented with
iodoform and coloured with saffron. I don’t say Heron, Squire and
Francis supplied it--there is a law of libel--but it was in bottles
bearing their name.
[Illustration: THE “MERRIE ENGLAND” AT CAPE NELSON, AND GIWI’s CANOES]
A few days after I had been established at Cape Nelson, we sighted a
schooner, and I went off to her in my whaler to get the latest news
and exercise my tongue gossiping in English. The schooner proved to
be the _Albert McLaren_, bound for the Mambare, and carrying Bishop
Stone-Wigg; he was frightfully ill with a most malignant attack of
malarial fever, and was sweltering in a tiny cabin. “I cannot go on
to the Mambare, R.M.,” said Bishop Stone-Wigg; “the schooner can go
on with stores. Will you give me a tiny corner in your camp until she
returns?” “My Lord,” I said, “I have got a tiny tent 10 by 12 feet,
and that is joined to a house 20 by 12 holding fifteen police, all
contained inside a fence enclosing an area of about half a tennis lawn;
we live hard and at any time we may die hard; but if you like to share
it, come by all means.” “Anywhere to lay my aching head,” said the
Bishop. Accordingly I took him ashore. He stayed with me a fortnight,
and we only had one slight breeze, when I made him drink a glass of
spirits every night before he went to bed, on the top of a strong dose
of quinine; he was as weak as a kitten and badly needed a stimulant.
At the end of the fortnight, the steamer _President_ came, and the
Bishop left in her for his head Station at Wedau: I accompanied him,
as he very kindly offered me the services of his Mission carpenter to
repair some damage done to my whaleboat, which had come about in this
way. The site chosen for my present house was situated over a rocky
little bay, open to the stormy south-easters, and really unsafe for
a boat to lie in: the only secure place in which the boat could be
left was half a mile away, where she was likely to be either stolen or
destroyed by natives. To haul the boat up on the rocky beach was a task
beyond the strength of the men on the Station; we therefore usually
employed some of the local natives, who were engaged clearing the
Station site for us, to help haul her up: these natives, however, were
always ordered away from the Station to their villages at five o’clock
in the afternoon. Some of the police had been sent in the whaler during
the day to collect shells and coral for lime-making purposes, and
returned after five; the result of which was that we had not men enough
to haul up the boat, and accordingly I told them to anchor her out at
the full length of the chains. Shortly after this was done, I noticed
that when the tide went out the boat’s stern would be dangerously near
the rocks, and sent a couple of police to shift her further out--which
they apparently did. The following morning I discovered the whaler on
the rocks with her stern smashed in; and then found that the two fools
I had sent had shifted her further out by hauling in and shortening
the chains, thereby allowing her to drag her anchors in the strong
night wind and smash on the rocks. The damage done was about equal
to twenty pounds: a benevolent Government held that when accidents
of this sort occurred, they were due to carelessness, and the men or
officer responsible should meet the expense out of their or his private
money. “Here’s a pretty pickle,” I said; “if I stop the two men’s
pay, they will get nothing for twelve months.” My own pay was already
mortgaged for four months ahead, to pay debts incurred on my last
leave: the Bishop’s offer, however, of his carpenter, helped me out
of the difficulty, and all I had to pay was five pounds towage to the
_President_. We plastered up the stern of the whaler to get her as far
as that.
I was a full week at Wedau getting the boat mended, for I managed to
strike Holy Week; the carpenter, being an aged and particularly holy
man, would drop his tools four or five times a day and scoot off to
some sort of service, whilst I would endeavour to carry on his work:
the day of silence and prayer was especially trying to me, as I was in
a fever of anxiety about my men left at Cape Nelson. At last, however,
I got away and started back, the Bishop coming with me as far as Cape
Vogel, where we had established a Mission Station. By the way, I nearly
drowned him on that trip, for there was no wind when we left late in
the day, and the police had fairly well exhausted themselves at the
oars long before we were across the bay; then night and a big wind
came, and we got into a tide rip off the Cape, which nearly swamped
us. Curiously enough, I never afterwards travelled at sea with Bishop
Stone-Wigg without having the most marvellous escapes from drowning.
I remember on one occasion sighting his vessel just before dark off
Cape Nelson, and--after directing that a light be hoisted at the
flagstaff--I went out in the whaleboat to pilot him into the harbour:
it was pitch dark by the time we got alongside, with nasty rain squalls
coming up at intervals. The _Albert McLaren_ started to stand in for
the narrow rock-bound entrance of the harbour, when suddenly the light
at the Station flagstaff was obscured by a rain squall, and when the
squall had passed--during which we had hove-to--the light had vanished.
After waiting for half an hour for it to reappear, I came to the
conclusion (the right one as it afterwards proved) that the police had
not noticed that the light was out, and therefore it was not likely to
be relit at all. We groped our way out to sea for some distance, and
anchored over a sunken reef, whilst I sent the whaler to try and nose
her way into the harbour and have the lamp relit: that was the last we
saw of the whaler that night, for she lost her way in the rain squalls,
and could find neither harbour nor _Albert McLaren_ again. Meanwhile,
the night got worse, the schooner’s anchor carried away, and we blew up
the coast in the dark, missing, Heaven only knows how, the many reefs
with which the coast is sown.
I spent my time on deck with the skipper, vainly trying to fix our
position on the coast from the village fires, and trying to imagine
a fit punishment for the police on shore, by whom the light had been
allowed to go out. Inman, who was now captain of the _Albert McLaren_,
was full of groans and despair. “If I had not seen your light go up
and your whaler coming out, I should have crept behind a reef and
anchored,” he complained; “now we are bound for Kingdom come.” “It
is no part of my work to be drowned in a missionary boat; it is just
an obliging disposition that has got me into this fix,” I told him.
Then I went down to the cabin, where Bishop Stone-Wigg was peacefully
writing, in spite of the racket on deck. “Well, R.M., what news?” he
asked. “The news is that we are driving through the night amongst
a lot of reefs, and the first thing that we shall know will be the
crash of the schooner’s forefoot on one; we can’t heave-to, or we’ll
inevitably smash up on the coastal rocks.” “There is a Guiding Hand,”
said the Bishop calmly. “There is no guiding hand,” I said; “neither
Inman nor I have the slightest idea where we are, and the prospect of
all of us being drowned before morning is particularly bright.” “Oh,
I meant we are in the power of a Higher Hand,” remarked the Bishop,
and calmly went on writing and making references from books. “Well, of
all cool customers,” I thought, as I returned to the deck, “the Bishop
about takes the cake.” Some few hours before daybreak the wind abated,
the rain squalls cleared away, and Inman was able to drop a kedge at
the end of about one hundred and fifty fathoms of rope, and anchor
until morning showed us our position. Daylight came, and a few hours
afterwards my whaler appeared searching for us, and I went back in her
to my Station, while the Bishop went on in his schooner to the Mambare.
At the Mambare the Bishop heard of the Opi villages, a thick cluster of
people at the mouth of that river, who at this time were by no means
too safe to deal with, or to be trusted. On his return voyage, he
calmly ordered the schooner to be hove-to off the mouth of the river,
and, accompanied by only a few Mission boys, went ashore in a tiny
dingey to pay the villages a visit, with the object of ascertaining the
suitability of the site for a Mission Station. The mouth of the Opi is
one of the most shark-infested spots in New Guinea, and of course the
Mission boys contrived to capsize the dingey in the surf; fortunately
the Bishop was a very good swimmer, as were also his boys, so he
managed to swim ashore; but an enormous shark swam alongside him to the
beach and, marvellous to relate, did not attack him. I heard the tale
from the Bishop, his boys, and the Opi natives who witnessed it.
I was not at all pleased when I heard of the Bishop having gone into
the Opi villages, for though they were not in my Division, I knew
from the officers of the Northern Division how unsafe they were; and
I begged the Bishop to come to me for an interpreter the next time he
wished to go there. It was a long time before he did want to go, and by
that time I had two police recruits from the Opi, and I gave them to
him as interpreters. “You will interpret truly for the Bishop,” I told
my two men, “but you must first tell the people that he is my friend,
and if anything happens to him I shall take such vengeance that the
women and children of the furthest Binandere people will cry at the
mention of it.” Privates Kove and Arita, the two men I sent, swore that
the Bishop should be safe, and that they would fittingly picture the
horrors that would befall the people if they threatened or injured him.
When the Bishop returned from the Opi and gave me back Kove and Arita,
he told me that he was very taken with the kindness and friendliness of
the natives, and had decided to put a Mission Station there. Some time
afterwards, I heard from Armit, then R.M. for the Northern Division and
in whose district the Opi was, asking why I had been putting the fear
of God or of the Government into the Opi people, and saying that he
was the only person officially entitled to do that. I soothed Armit,
by pointing out that if the Bishop had got killed, he was the man who
would have had to face the music with the Governor, and that I had only
been trying to do him--Armit--a good turn.
Writing about Bishop Stone-Wigg reminds me of an occasion when he
accompanied me to the Yodda Gold-field; the Yodda miners at this time
being about as hard-bitten, hard swearing, and as utterly reckless a
lot of “hard cases” as could be found under the British Flag. They
had got a cemetery--which, I might remark in passing, was afterwards
washed out, with the bones of its inhabitants, because a payable streak
of gold was found in it--and it was well filled with dead diggers.
The Bishop, after looking at it, suggested that he should read the
Burial Service over the graves. I agreed that it might be a good thing;
making a mental note that afterwards, when anxious relations wrote
to me about their dead relatives, I could say that the Bishop of New
Guinea had given them Christian burial. I sent a summons to the miners,
telling them what was to take place, and they rolled up in strength
to attend. The Bishop read the impressive service of the Church in
a voice and manner that struck home to those miners, and produced an
unexpected result. Mat Crow, a prominent man among them, was deeply
affected; and, at the end, he strode up to the Bishop, struck him
heartily on the back, and broke forth: “Boys, this is kind of the Bish.
There’s Alligator Jack and Red Bill, there’s blank, and blank, and
blank planted here, and Gawd, ’E knows whether they have rested easy;
we know what they were like, and we know what the Warden is like who
read prayers over them; he was better than nothing; but he is no good
alongside a parson, and a Bishop is fifty parson-power in one. Boys, I
move a vote of thanks to the Bish, with three times three, and may we
all have a Bish to plant us. Alligator Jack would be a proud man to-day
if he knew what was being done for him.” Bishop Stone-Wigg fled, as
the vote of thanks was carried with enthusiasm, and the cheers for the
fifty parson-power parson echoed over the graveyard.
Returning to Cape Nelson from Wedau, I found my men bottled up inside
the stockade; and was told that the Okein, a pugnacious tribe to the
north, had paid them a visit, swaggered about the Station, interfered
with the working Kaili Kaili, and generally made themselves a nuisance.
The following is a brief description of the different tribes inhabiting
the North-Eastern Division, and also a general review of the feeling
existing between them at this time. The Cape Nelson (Kaili Kaili)
people, under the leadership of their chief, Giwi, were a confederation
of shattered tribes, regarding every one to the north or south--or,
in fact, any stranger--as enemies, by whom they might be attacked or
slaughtered at a moment’s notice. To the north there lay the Okein,
a branch of the Binandere; a strong, warlike, and colonizing people
steadily pushing their way south, but halted in their southern march
by the necessity of defending the land occupied by them, against the
attacks of inland raiding tribes. To the south lay the Maisina tribe
of Collingwood Bay, a race of pirates, who terrorized the coast as far
as Cape Vogel, but were in their turn harried by incursions from the
Doriri, a mountain tribe behind them. The Kaili Kaili, who inhabited
the mountains and hills at Cape Nelson, were therefore really remnants
of tribes shattered by attack from either the Doriri, Maisina, or
Binandere people; and also the remnants of a tribe frightfully weakened
by an eruption of Mount Victory.
For some time after they had occupied the inhospitable rugged lands
of Cape Nelson, they had been subjected to periodical incursions
and slaughterings by the Okein fleet of canoes; but were eventually
saved by the good sense of their elected chief, old Giwi, who had an
uncommonly fine head and exceptional reasoning power. The Kaili Kaili
were not an aquatic people, but Giwi noticed four things: firstly,
that all attacks against his people must come by sea; secondly, that
the canoes of the invaders were made of a heavy hard wood; thirdly,
that the missiles of the invaders were heavy spears having a limited
range; and fourthly, that once the northern men landed, his lighter
people stood no chance against their charges. Giwi, in his way, was a
Napoleon. He saw that to fight the invader successfully, he must fight
on the sea; he saw that he must not fight at close quarters, but must
have faster canoes, and also missiles outranging those of the Okein;
and he laid his plans accordingly. First of all, Giwi made his people
learn to swim in the pools of the streams running into the fiords of
Cape Nelson; then he ordered canoes to be cut from a particularly light
wood, of shallow draft, and capable of great speed, though they would
not last many months; then he had made a great stock of a particularly
light and long spear, capable of being thrown a great distance. Having
completed his preparations, Giwi built an ostentatious and sham village
at the head of a fiord, round the shores of which he concealed his new
fleet, and then awaited developments. The developments soon came: a
strong Okein fleet of canoes swept down the coast, sighted the village,
and at once attacked it; it fell an easy prey, being undefended and
of no value, and the disappointed Okein fleet attempted to put to sea
again, only to find hovering on their flank a swarm of light canoes,
with whom they could not possibly close, and by the crews of which they
were, man by man, slaughtered at long range. Out-generalled, out-paced
and out-ranged, they had no hope. Very few of the Okein canoes escaped,
and, for many years afterwards, they gave Cape Nelson a wide berth as
they passed on their southern raids. Giwi and his canoes, however, at
the time I went there, were the sole obstacles to their occupying the
coast south of Cape Nelson, though they could still raid it.
The account of this fight, I had from Giwi himself, and also from some
of the Okein who took part in it, years after it had taken place; but
all their accounts tallied. In fact, the way in which I first heard of
it was rather peculiar. I was staying for the night in old Giwi’s house
as an honoured guest, and rolling over on the floor to sleep, I was
disturbed by the old boy’s chuckles. “What are you laughing at, you old
reprobate?” I demanded. “You are lying on the exact spot where I kept
the body of the Okein chief, before I ate him,” he said, and then he
unfolded the tale I have just told.
[Illustration: GIWI AND HIS SONS]
Old Wanigela, a chief of the sub-branch of the Maisina, whose people
had been subject to constant attack by two foes, the Okein by sea and
the Doriri from the mountains, took heart of grace from Giwi’s
defeat of the Okein, and laid plans for the discomfiture of the next
raiders. His plan was, however, with the exception of the long light
spears, much simpler than that of Giwi; for all he did, was to abandon
his village at the approach of the hostile canoes, and permit them,
unopposed, to enter a narrow river which ran alongside the village.
After the Okein had plundered and burnt to their hearts’ content,
and had lumbered up their canoes with loot, they essayed to return,
and were jostling and crowding together in the current of the narrow
entrance to the river, when Wanigela suddenly appeared on the bank
with his men and fairly hailed spears upon the now packed Okein, who
were taken entirely by surprise by the unexpected attack from people
whose fighting qualities they despised; thrown into confusion by
the immediate loss of many men, and unable to charge home with the
favourite weapon of the Binandere people--the stone-headed club--they
were all slaughtered, with the exception of one canoe-load of warriors,
which managed to put to sea and escape.
The two defeats had for a time cooled the ardour of the Okein for
raiding on the coast; but later, having been strengthened by fresh
families from the virile Binandere, they turned their attention to a
new field, and raided and slaughtered the Baruga people of the Musa
River. The Baruga were now in an evil case: they could not go back, for
then the Doriri from the hills raided them, that people’s war parties
sweeping the whole of the flat country. The Baruga’s sole method of
escape from the Doriri had originally been by canoes and river; but
now the canoes of the Okein were driving them up and from the river,
into the very clutches of the Doriri. Fortunately, however, Sir William
MacGregor fell in with a fleet of Okein canoes returning from a raid up
the Musa, laden with human flesh, and he inflicted yet another crushing
defeat upon them; a defeat from which they were only just recovering
when I came to Cape Nelson. They were to get yet another reverse, and
at my hands next time; but that was to come much later.
Wanigela’s victory over the Okein was, however, to prove his undoing;
for he and his people, cock-a-hoop over their defeat of the redoubtable
Okein, decided to try conclusions with the first war party of Doriri
entering their country. It was not long before a war party, a small
one of about fifty Doriri, appeared in the district: Wanigela located
them and their line of march; then, assembling his own men and many
hundreds from the parent Maisina tribe, he laid an ambush for the
Doriri. This stratagem proved entirely successful, the enemy marching
into the middle of the hidden men; Wanigela then yelled, “Now we have
you where we wanted you!” which was his signal for the attack; his men
leapt to their feet; the Doriri merely replied with a curt “Have you?”
and charged. Wanigela and thirteen of his most redoubtable fighters
were killed, many were wounded, and the rest broke and fled in every
direction. Nothing after this would induce the people of Collingwood
Bay to stand up to resist the Doriri, who now began a policy of sending
very small parties, which ceaselessly snapped up and killed men,
women, and children. Sir Francis Winter, Moreton, and Butterworth,
made an attempt to seek out and deal with the Doriri, but failed, in
consequence of taking Collingwood Bay carriers with them, by whom they
were deserted on the very first night.