_Arrival of our Ambonese—Coolie Considerations—Canoes
of the Natives—Making Canoes—Preliminary Exploration of
the Mimika—Variable Tides—Completing the Camp—A Plague
of Flies—Also of Crickets—Making “Atap”—Trading with the
Natives—Trade Goods._
After all the stores and equipment of the expedition had been landed
at Wakatimi, an operation which took six days and some ten or more
journeys of the steam launch towing many boats to accomplish, the
_Nias_ returned to Dobo, and brought back from there on the 14th
January our Ambonese coolies, who had arrived there by mail steamer
from Amboina. To those of us who had had experience of native carriers
in other countries, the appearance of the ninety-six Ambonese came as
something of a shock. When the boats crowded with them came within
sight of the camp the natives cried out that our women were coming, and
they might well be excused for their mistake. With their wide straw
hats and coloured coats and shirts and gay _sarongs_ they had not much
the appearance of men, and we wondered what sort of people they would
be to force a way through the trackless country. When they landed, our
first impression of their unsuitableness was rather strengthened than
otherwise. Every man (to give them a dignity which very few of them
deserved) had a large wooden or tin box as well as a huge bundle of
bedding and mats. Their average age appeared to be about sixteen years,
and though they were said to be the best men obtainable in Amboina, the
physique of most of them was wretched. It was evidently useless to keep
so many feeble creatures, so it was decided to keep fifty of the more
promising and send the rest back to Amboina by the _Nias_, which was
waiting at the mouth of the Mimika until the following day. The whole
gang was paraded and a more hopeless looking lot it would be hard to
imagine. With great difficulty we picked out fifty who, though they had
little appearance of strength, were not obviously crippled by disease,
and the forty-six others were sent away without having done a single
day’s work.
[Illustration: CANOE-MAKING: ROUGHLY SHAPING THE FELLED TREE.]
[Sidenote: AMBONESE COOLIES]
The question of coolies, as we were to find by bitter experience during
the ensuing months, is the point that determines the success or failure
of an expedition. Mr. Stalker had left England charged with the duty
of engaging coolies for this expedition. It was hoped that he would be
able to get a number of men in the Ké Islands, but failing to engage
them there he had seen in Amboina his only chance of recruiting a
sufficient number of men. No blame can be attached to him, for he had
had no experience of the kind before and his instructions were not very
detailed, but it was a mistake which seriously delayed the progress of
the expedition.
As well as the trouble involved in trying to make a silk purse of
efficient coolies out of the sow’s ear of the Amboina rabble we were
confronted by another difficulty of transport. It has been mentioned
above (page 43) that before we arrived in the country it was expected
that we should find rising ground close to the sea, and that in a few
days’ journey at the most we should reach an altitude of three thousand
feet or upwards, but the discovery that there was a tract of level
country hardly above sea level extending from the coast to the foot of
the mountains thirty miles inland entirely upset our calculations. Had
we known this before we should necessarily have brought a launch and
boats to tow our stores up the many miles of navigable river, and by so
doing we should have saved ourselves many weeks of valuable time and
an infinity of labour. It is worth while to record this fact, not for
the object of drawing attention to any deficiencies in the organisation
of the expedition, but to demonstrate the uselessness of entering an
unknown country without having made a preliminary reconnaissance.
An urgent message was despatched to the Navy Department in Java begging
them to supply us with a steam launch at the earliest opportunity, but
communications are slow in that part of the world, and it was not until
ten weeks afterwards that the launch arrived at the Mimika. Its career
was brief and inglorious. It made two or three journeys at snail’s pace
up the river before it finally broke down altogether and was sent back
to Java.
In June we purchased from the pearlfishers at Dobo a petrol
motor-boat, which made several successful trips up the river towing
large quantities of stores, and then it was badly damaged by coming
into violent contact with a sunken tree, and it was several months
before it could be repaired sufficiently to float. Thus it happened
that nearly all the river transport of the expedition was laboriously
carried out in canoes.
[Sidenote: THE NATIVE CANOE]
The canoes used by the natives on the Mimika and neighbouring rivers
are simple “dug-outs,” that is they are made from one tree trunk
without any joinery at all. They vary considerably in size but the
length of an average canoe is about thirty-five feet. The sides curve
inward towards the gunwale so that in section the canoe forms a large
segment of a circle. The breadth at the gunwale is about eighteen
inches and the breadth at the widest part from eighteen to twenty-four
inches. The gunwales are almost horizontal, though in some boats there
is a considerable “sheer” towards the end of the canoe. They end in a
square bow and at the stern they come together to a fine point. The
bottom of a canoe—there is no keel—slopes finely up from the middle
towards the ends so that when the canoe is afloat several feet of its
length at bow and stern are out of water.
The square bow of the canoe is carved in a more or less symmetrical
fashion and there is usually a narrow margin of ornamental carving at
intervals along the sides. A common feature of this carving, as also of
the other native ornaments, is an object which is intended to represent
the human eye. Occasionally they attach to the bow of the canoe, one
on either side and one in the middle, three long boards carved in a
sort of fretwork manner and painted red and white. These project about
four feet in front of the bow and give it somewhat the appearance of a
bird’s beak. The inside of the canoe is sometimes whitened with lime
or sago powder but is otherwise not ornamented. A few feet from the
stern, where the bottom begins to slope upwards, a low partition of
wood is left forming as it were a sort of bulkhead; the space behind
this is filled with sand on which a fire is kept burning.
Before we came to the country the whole business of canoe-making
from the first felling of the tree to the final hollowing out of
the inside was done with stone axes and the carving was done with
sharpened shells, a labour which it is difficult to realise, so it is
not surprising that the natives take very great care of their boats.
They never allow water to stand in them for long, and at the end of
a storm of rain the first thing they do is to go to the river and
bail the water out of their canoes, which they do by scooping it out
with the blade of a paddle. They also take good care of the outside
and frequently char them with fire to kill the worms, which otherwise
quickly destroy wood in brackish water.
The tree most commonly used for making canoes is _Octomeles moluccana_,
which has a smooth pale trunk devoid of branches for a long way above
the ground. When they can do so they choose a tree growing close to the
river bank, but this is not always possible and we found a place where
a tree for a canoe had been felled fully three hundred yards from the
water. The trunk is roughly shaped where it lies and is then hauled
with immense toil over logs laid on a rough track to the river; thence
it is towed to the village where the hollowing and shaping is done at
leisure. We saw a large number of canoes made at Parimau, and in
nearly every case the balance was perfect when they were first put into
the water.
[Illustration: CANOES, FINISHED AND UNFINISHED.]
The canoes are usually propelled by paddles with long thin shafts and
wide blades which are often beautifully carved, but in shallow places
or rapid water the natives generally employ a long pole in the use of
which they are very expert. It is easy enough to stand up and paddle or
pole in large canoes, but the smaller craft are very top-heavy, and the
natives perform wonderful feats of balancing in navigating them. Their
education begins early for we saw in one of the villages small canoes
three or four feet long, in which the children begin to learn the craft
of the waterman almost before they have learned to walk.
[Sidenote: PURCHASING CANOES]
Though the people value their canoes very highly they were anxious
enough to part with them in exchange for our knives and pieces of
metal, of which they had none at all, and we very soon had a small
fleet of canoes. The first two were bought for a knife apiece, but the
price soon rose to an axe for a canoe, and in the course of several
months it had still further risen to two axes or even two axes and a
knife.
Within a few days of the arrival of our coolies we had purchased half
a dozen canoes and preparations were made to send an exploring party
up the river. At that time we were none of us skilful canoe-men and it
was considered safer to use the canoes as rafts by lashing two side by
side and securing a platform of bamboos across the top. This was a most
cumbrous arrangement which added enormously to the labour of paddling,
and after the first journey it was never repeated.
On the 18th January, Goodfellow, Rawling, and Shortridge with
twenty-four coolies, six Gurkhas, and a small party of Javanese
soldiers in the charge of a Dutch sergeant started up the river. They
took with them about a dozen natives, hoping that they would work
hard at paddling and would be useful in other ways, but they were a
perpetual nuisance calling out for their wives and wanting to stop to
eat or sleep; they finished by stealing one of the canoes and deserting
the night before they would have been sent back to their homes. With
them went another of our cherished illusions that we should be able to
get a great deal of assistance from the natives of the country. The
party proceeded up the river at an incredibly slow rate on account of
the clumsy rafts, and for four days saw no signs of inhabitants. On the
fifth day they found one isolated hut, and two days later after passing
a few scattered huts they arrived at the village of Parimau, above
which place the river appeared to be hardly navigable.
The welcome accorded to the party by the natives of Parimau was as
enthusiastic as that at Wakatimi described above, the people showing
their delight by smearing themselves with mud and shedding copious
tears. During the following days, when a camp was being made, hundreds
of natives flocked into the place to see the strange white men, who
were exhibited to the new-comers with a sort of proprietary air by the
natives of Parimau.
[Sidenote: TIDES OF THE RIVER]
In the meantime a great deal of work was necessary to put in order
the base-camp at Wakatimi, and to render it secure against an attack,
should the natives ever alter their friendly attitude towards us. The
bush was completely cleared for some distance and a stout fence built
about the camp. Then it was found that at high tide, and especially at
spring tide, a large part of the camp was flooded and this necessitated
a great amount of levelling and trenching and banking, a task which
appealed to the fenland instinct of Cramer. The tide made itself felt
in the river for several miles above Wakatimi, where there was a rise
and fall of about ten feet, but the exact tidal movements were very
difficult to recognise. On some days two tides were distinctly seen,
while on many others there appeared to be only one. Their movements
were further complicated by the very variable amount of water brought
down by the river. Sometimes the river was almost stagnant, but at
other times it swept down bank-high with a strong current for days at a
time, and no flow of the tide could be noticed. The river Watuka, which
joins the Mimika a few miles below Wakatimi, had a much greater volume
of water than the latter river, and often when the tide was rising its
waters were easily recognisable by their white colour floating up past
the camp and holding back the waters of the Mimika in the same way that
the Blue Nile, when it is in flood, forms a pond of the White Nile.
It was unfortunate that no suitable place for the base-camp could be
found above the tidal water, because it increased the difficulty of
supplying the camp with drinking water, and at times when there was
not much fresh water coming down the river the ebb and flow of the tide
washed the refuse backwards and forwards in front of the camp. Water
was boiled and filtered every day in quantities large enough for every
man in the camp to have as much as he wished, but the value of this
precaution was to a large extent neutralised by the Malay habit of
washing out the mouth with the water in which the man bathes.
A wooden landing stage for canoes was built out over the muddy bank,
and a bathing place was cut off from the river by a wooden fence
to protect bathers from crocodiles and sharks, both of which were
occasionally seen, but as the natives bathed constantly without showing
any fear of either animal the precaution was perhaps needless.
[Sidenote: FLIES AND CRICKETS]
At that time when the ground was being cleared we began to be plagued
by large blue-bottle flies, which swarmed about the camp and laid their
eggs everywhere. One of their favourite laying grounds was in our
bedding, which in a hot damp climate must always be hung out to air
when the sun shines. You would find two folds of your blanket stuck
together with horrible masses of eggs and if, as sometimes happened,
you did not scrape them all away you would wake up at night and find
yourself crawling with maggots. There are some people who are afraid of
spiders, but the most timorous of mortals must find the homely spider
preferable to the loathsome blow fly. The house where we mostly lived
at Wakatimi and where we had our meals was immediately filled with
blue-bottles the moment our food was brought in, so we encouraged the
larger sort of spider to live there and one old fellow who lived under
the corner of the table used to come out at meal times and take his
toll of flies, and in the course of time he became so tame that he
would take a living fly out of your fingers.
At the same time, and indeed during the whole of our stay in the
country, we were greatly annoyed by the depredations of very large
crickets. Not content with making a most distracting noise by night
these horrible creatures did endless damage to our eatable possessions.
They invaded the sacks in which we kept our scanty garments, socks,
vests and the like, and riddled them into holes, and they appeared to
have a special partiality for sponges and brushes, which they devoured
completely. Even more serious were their attacks on folded tents or
sacks of rice and flour, which had to be constantly taken out of the
store houses and repaired. When these things were taken out of the
house a large number of crickets were taken out too, and then was the
chance for the Kingfishers (_Halcyon sanctus_) which darted down and
snapped them up. A pair of these beautiful little birds haunted the
camp and became so tame that they would fly down from the roof of a
house and pick up a cricket within a foot or two of a man.
[Sidenote: BUILDING MATERIAL]
When the ground had been well cleared and levelled, we set about the
business of building barracks for the men and store houses for the
provisions and equipment. The Dutch contingent had brought with them
regulation army barrack frames, pieces of seasoned wood of definite
lengths which are fitted together by bolts and screws, and form the
skeleton of excellent houses. We had nothing of the kind, but the
jungle supplied plenty of wood and our houses, though less regular than
those of the Dutch, were very soon built. It is easy enough to put up
the framework of a house in a place where there is plenty of timber,
but the walls and the roof are a more difficult matter. Fortunately the
natives were adepts in the art of making “atap,” which they use for
roofing their own huts, and they were soon eagerly making it for us in
exchange for our trade goods.
[Illustration: MAKING “ATAP” FOR ROOFING.]
The best “atap” is made from the leaves of the Nipa palm (_Nipa
fruticans_) which grows abundantly in the swampy country. Almost
equally good “atap” can be made from the Sago palm, but the leaves of
the Coconut palm shrivel quickly and are of no use for the purpose. The
method of the manufacture of “atap” is briefly as follows: Leaflets of
the palm are stripped from the stem, which is then split into three or
four sticks of about an inch and a half in diameter and five or six
feet in length. The man begins by taking up a leaf and folding it in
the middle, thus breaking the mid-rib of the leaf. He then frees the
mid-rib from the surrounding leaf for a short distance and breaks off
a piece about three inches long for use presently. Then holding the
stick near the end he pushes the free end of the mid-rib, which is
separated from the leaf, into the soft substance of the stick and folds
the leaf once round the stick in such a way that its two free ends lie
one upon the other. He then clips together the free ends with the
short piece he had broken from the mid-rib. He then repeats the process
with another leaf, making each one slightly overlap the last, until the
stick is completely covered with folded leaves. It should be said that
each leaf is about three inches wide and four feet long so that the
free ends, when the leaf is folded, lie about two feet from the stick.
“Atap” is always made by the men, never by the women, and a quick
worker will make a complete piece in about ten minutes.
The method of roofing with “atap” is very simple. Pieces are fixed by
strands of rattan to the timbers of the roofing beginning from below
and overlapping each other like tiles. The stick end of the “atap” is
uppermost and the free ends point downwards. When there is no lack of
“atap” and the pieces can be laid on the roof very closely together it
forms a most efficient thatch, which keeps the house tolerably cool in
the hot weather and is impervious to the heaviest downfall of rain.
The demand for “atap” started our regular trade with the natives, it
brought us into friendly relations with them and they soon discovered
that they could put confidence in us. When they found that we really
paid them, as we promised, in beads and cloth, there was keen
competition in the “atap” trade and they brought us as much as we
wanted. For a few pieces only they received beads, while for ten pieces
and upwards we paid them in cloth and they adopted various tricks to
obtain cloth, when they knew that the amount they brought was only
worth beads. One of their dodges was to bring old pieces of “atap”
from their own houses to increase the size of the pile, and sometimes
a man would steal two or three pieces from the pile of another man
who had already been paid, but they were always found out and were
not in the least ashamed of themselves. It was important to keep the
price low, because we very well knew that when the people had obtained
as much cloth and as many beads as they wanted they would never do
any more work, and that did occur after a few months. They greatly
enjoyed a little foolery. For instance, when you were paying them in
cloth it was much more appreciated if you wound it artistically about
the recipient’s head than if you merely thrust it into his hands; and
in paying a man in beads it was thought a great joke if you let them
slowly trickle into his palm out of your closed fist. His smile would
grow with the pile of beads in his hand, and he always hoped to find
some more concealed between your fingers.
In addition to “atap” they also brought other things for trade,
sometimes fish from the sea which were generally uneatable, and
sometimes delicious prawns six or eight inches long from the river
estuary. There was a constant trade in coconuts which grew in some
numbers about Wakatimi, and occasionally we bought a bunch of bananas.
Living birds of many kinds, cassowaries, pigeons, kingfishers, lories
and parrots were often brought for sale, but the poor creatures were
generally taken straight from the nest, and the soldiers and coolies
who bought them quickly stuffed them to death with rice. Some of the
lories throve and became tame enough to fly about at liberty, and the
cassowaries became quite a pest in the camp.
[Sidenote: TRADING WITH THE NATIVES]
So keen did the people become on trading that they would barter all
their worldly possessions for European goods. Stone clubs and axes,
bows and arrows, spears and drums, the skulls of their forebears,
indeed all their moveable goods were brought to us for exchange. It may
sound rather a mean transaction to buy from a Papuan a stone axe, which
has probably been in his family for generations, for a small knife or
coloured handkerchief, but he was always delighted with the exchange
and when both parties to it are satisfied a bargain may be considered a
just one.
Our trade goods consisted mostly of coloured beads, red cloth, knives
of various sizes, and axes. Of these the red cloth was by far the most
useful and the most sought after. The Dutch had cloth of various shades
and patterns, but the natives, with a true eye for colour, knew that
our red stuff suited their dark skins better than any shade of green
or blue. The axes were given in exchange for canoes, and knives were
mostly used to pay the men who carried for us in the interior. Fish
hooks were greatly appreciated by the natives of the coast villages,
but the Jews’ harps of which we had a large quantity, though they
are greatly in demand among the Papuans of British New Guinea and in
some of the Pacific Islands, were of no use to us for trade, and the
few we gave away were used either as ornaments round the neck or as
ear-rings. There was always a great demand for cast-off clothing, but
a Papuan wearing a pair of tattered trousers or a fragment of a shirt
was so unpleasant to look at and he generally became so demoralised
in character, that we made it a rule not to give them any of our
rags. Empty bottles were of course greatly sought after and the many
thousands of tins which we emptied during the course of the expedition
were wealth untold to a people, who up to that time had possessed no
sort of vessel.
[Illustration: PAPUAN WOMAN CANOEING UP THE MIMIKA.
(_Smoke is seen from the fire in the stern._)]