THE SCOUT OF PAPUA[35]
_Chalmers, the Friend_
(Date of Incident, about 1893)
The quick puffing of the steam launch _Miro_ was the only sound to
break the stillness of the mysterious Aivai[36] River. On the launch
were three white people--two men and a woman. They were the first who
had ever broken the silence of that stream.
They gazed out under the morning sun along the dead level of the
Purari[37] delta, for they had left behind them the rolling breakers
of the Gulf of Papua in order to explore this dark river. Away to the
south rolled the blue waters between this vast island of New Guinea
and Northern Australia.
They saw on either bank the wild tangle of twisted mangroves with
their roots higher than a man, twined together like writhing serpents.
They peered through the thick bush with its green leaves drooping down
to the very water's edge. But mostly they looked ahead over the bow of
the boat along the green-brown water that lay ahead of them, dappled
with sunlight under the trees. For they were facing an unknown
district where savage Papuans lived--as wild as hawks. They did not
know what adventure might meet them at the next bend of the river.
"Splendid! Splendid!" cried one of the white men, a bearded giant
whose flashing eyes and mass of brown hair gave him the look of a
lion. "We will make it the white woman's peace. Bravo!" And he turned
to Mrs. Abel, whose face lit up with pleasure at his happy excitement.
"No white man has even seen the people of Iala,"[38] said Tamate--for
that was the native name given to James Chalmers, the Scottish boy
who had now gone out to far-off Papua as a missionary.[39] "Iko
there"--and he pointed to a stalwart Papuan who stood by the
funnel--"is the only one of us who has seen them and can speak their
tongue.
"It is dangerous for your wife to go among these people," he went on,
turning to Mr. Abel, "but she will help us more than anything else
possibly can to make friends." And Mr. Abel nodded, for he knew that
when the Papuans mean to fight they send their women and children
away; and that when they saw Mrs. Abel they would believe that the
white people came as friends and not enemies.
As the steamer carried this scouting party against the swift current
up the river toward Iala, Tamate wanted to find how far up the river
the village lay. So he beckoned Iko to him. Tamate did not know a word
of the dialect which Iko spoke, but he had with him an old wrinkled
Papuan, who knew Iko's language, and who looked out with worshipping
eyes at the great white man who was his friend. So Tamate, wishing
to ask Iko how far away the village of Iala was, spoke first to old
Vaaburi,[40] and then Vaaburi asked Iko.
Iko stretched out his dark forefinger, and made them understand that
that finger meant the length of their journey to Iala. Then with his
other hand he touched his forefinger under the second joint to show
how far they had travelled on their journey--not a third of the
distance.
Hour after hour went by, as the steamer drove her way through the
swiftly running waters of Aivai. And ever Iko pointed further and
further up his finger until at last they had reached his claw-like
nail. By three o'clock the middle of the nail was reached. The eyes of
all looked anxiously ahead. At every curve of the river they strained
their sight to see if Iala were in view. How would these savage people
welcome the white men and woman in their snorting great canoe that had
no paddles, nor oars? There came a sharp bend in the river, and then
a long straight reach of water lying between the forest-covered banks.
Suddenly Iko called out, and Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel peered
ahead.
The great trees of the river nearly met above their heads, and only a
narrow strip of sky could be seen.
There in the distance were the houses of Iala, close clustered on both
banks of the steaming river. They stood on piles of wood driven into
the mud, like houses on stilts, and their high-pointed bamboo roofs
stood out over the river like gigantic poke-bonnets.
"Slow," shouted Tamate to the engineer. The _Miro_ slackened speed
till she just stemmed the running current and no more.
"It will be a bit of a shock to them," said Tamate to his friends,
"to see this launch. We will give them time to get their wits together
again."
Looking ahead through their glasses, the white men and Mrs. Abel could
see canoes swiftly crossing and re-crossing the river and men rushing
about.
"Full speed ahead," cried Tamate again, and then after a few
revolutions of the engine, "Go slow. It will never do," he said, "to
drop amongst them while they are in that state. They will settle down
presently." And then, as he looked up at the sky between the waving
branches of the giant trees, "we have got a good two hours' daylight
yet," he said.
Life and death to Tamate and his friends hung in the balance, for
they were three people unarmed, and here were dark savage warriors in
hundreds. Everything depended on his choosing just the right moment
for going into the midst of these people. So he watched them closely,
knitting his shaggy eyebrows together as he measured their state of
mind by their actions. He was the Scout of Christ in Papua, and he
must be watchful and note all those things that escape most men but
mean so much to trained eyes. Tamate seemed to have a strange gift
that made him able, even where other men could tell nothing, to say
exactly when it was, and when it was not, possible to go among a wild,
untouched tribe.
Now the bewildered Ialan savages had grown quieter. Tamate called to
the engineer to drive ahead once more. Slowly the launch forged her
way through the running waters and drew nearer and nearer to the
centre of Iala.
There on either side stood the houses in long rows stretching up the
river, and on the banks hundreds of men stood silent and as still as
trees. Their canoes lay half in and half out of the water ready for
instant launching. In each canoe stood its crew erect and waiting. All
the women and children had been sent away, for these men were out to
fight. They did not know whether this strange house upon the water
with the smoke coming from its chimney was the work of gods or devils.
Still they stood there to face the strange thing and, if need be, to
fight.
Brown Iko stood in the bows of the _Miro_; near him stood Tamate. Then
the engine stopped and the anchor was dropped overboard. The savages
stood motionless. Not a weapon could be seen. The engineer, hearing
the anchor-chain rattle through the hole, blew the steam-whistle in
simple high spirits. As the shriek of the whistle echoed under
the arches of the trees, with the swiftness of lightning the Ialan
warriors swung their long bows from behind their bodies. Without
stooping each caught up an arrow that stood between his toes and with
one movement fixed it and pulled the bamboo strings of their black
bows till the notch of the arrows touched their ears. A hundred arrows
were aimed at the hearts of Tamate and Mr. and Mrs. Abel.
Swiftly Iko stood upon the bulwark of the _Miro_, and shouted just one
word at the top of his voice. It was the Ialan word for "Peace." And
again he shouted it, and yet again "Peace, Peace!"
Then he cried out "Pouta!"[41] It was the name of the chief of these
savages. They had but to let the arrows from their bows and all would
have been over. There was silence. What order would Pouta give?
Then from the bank on their right came the sound of an answering
voice. In a flash every arrow was taken from its bow, and again not a
weapon was to be seen.
Iko then called out again to Pouta, and Tamate told Iko what he was to
say to his friend, the savage chief. For some minutes the conversation
went on. At last Iko came to the point of asking for a canoe to take
them ashore.
Chief Pouta hesitated. Then he gave his command, and a large canoe was
launched from the bank into the river and slowly paddled towards the
_Miro_.
As the canoe came towards them, Tamate turned to Mrs. Abel, who had
stood there without flinching with all the arrows pointed toward the
boat; and he spoke words like these: "Your bravery is our strength.
Seeing you makes them believe that we come for peace. You give them
greater confidence in us than all our words."
By this time the canoe had paddled alongside the launch. Tamate went
over the side first into the canoe, then Mrs. Abel, then Mr. Abel,
Iko, and Vaaburi. The canoe pushed off again and paddled toward the
landing place, where a crowd of Ialan savages filled every inch of
space.
As soon as the bow of the canoe touched the bank, Tamate, without
hesitating a second, stepped out with Iko. Together they walked up to
the chief Pouta, and Tamate put his arms around him in an embrace of
peace.
Pouta, standing on a high place, shouted to all his warriors. But none
of the white people knew a word of his meaning.
Look where they would, in every direction, this white woman and the
two men were completely surrounded by an unbroken mass of wild and
armed savages, who stood gazing upon the strange apparitions in their
midst.
Tamate, without a pause, perfectly calm, and showing no signs of fear,
spoke to Pouta and his men through old Vaaburi and Iko.
"We have come," he said, "so that we may be friends. We have come
without weapons. We have brought with us a woman of our tribe, for
we come in peace. We are strangers. But we come with great things to
tell. Some day we will come again and will stay with you and will tell
you all our message. To-day we come only to make friends."
Then Iko closed his eyes and prayed in the language of the people of
Iala.
Turning to his friends when the prayer was over, Tamate said quietly:
"Now, we must get aboard as quickly as we possibly can. My plan for a
first visit is to come, make friends and get away again swiftly. When
we are gone they will talk to one another about us. Next time we come
we shall meet friends."
So they walked down through an avenue of armed Papuans to the bank,
and got into the canoe again: the paddles flashed as she drove swiftly
through the water toward the launch. As they climbed her side, the
anchor was weighed, the _Miro_ swung round, her engines started, and,
carried down by the swift stream, she slipped past the packed masses
of silent men who lined the banks.
It is a great thing to be a pathfinder through a country which no
man has penetrated before. But it is a greater thing to do as these
missionary-scouts did on their journey up the Aivai and find a path
of friendship into savage lives. To do that was the greatest joy in
Tamate's life. For he said, when he had spent many years in this work:
"Recall the twenty-one years, give me back all its experiences, give
me its shipwrecks, give me its standings in the face of death, give
it me surrounded with savages with spears and clubs, give it me back
again with spears flying about me, with the club knocking me to the
ground, give it me back, and I will still be your missionary."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 35: Pa-poo-[)a].]
[Footnote 36: A-ee-v[)a]-ee.]
[Footnote 37: Poo-r[)a]-ree.]
[Footnote 38: Ee-[)a]-l[)a].]
[Footnote 39: He had spent some sixteen years in the South Sea Island
of Rarotonga and had in 1877 become a pioneer among the cannibals of
Papua (New Guinea).]
[Footnote 40: V[=a][=a]-boo-ree.]
[Footnote 41: Poo-o-t[)a].]