Wednesday, July 1, 1908.
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That night, Peter, the native came aboard, and told us that if we wanted to get our washing done, his wife would do it for us; so it was settled that early next morning Nakata was to go ashore and help with it. Next morning, almost before sun-up, Nakata went ashore. A little later we white people followed; but we found no washing done. The Japanese are great practical jokers in their quiet way. We found Nakata p298 trying to show the naked women how to wear Mrs. London's clothes. He succeeded very well, until he accidentally tickled one of them, and immediately they all jumped a good arm's length away from him; and as those on whom he had succeeded in getting dresses did not know how to get them off, and for fear of being tickled would not allow him to touch them, there was no washing done.
Next morning, Jack called all hands and they heaved anchor, while I started the engine and we steamed out of the harbour. We went about two miles before I shut down; then we flew along with an eight-knot breeze up the coast of the big island of San Christoval (or Bauro), an island seventy-two miles long by twenty-five wide. A missionary lived on one end of San Christoval, and a trader on the other end, and the people were killing and eating each other right along.
At three o'clock, Jack told me to start the engine, as the breeze was dying out, and he was afraid of being caught on a bad coast with no moon to steer by and reefs all about. We decided to stop at a small island six miles off San Christoval—Ugi is its name, and it has a good harbour. When we were about five miles off, a whale-boat with a white man and half a dozen black boys came alongside, and I stopped the engine until he got aboard; then we pushed on again with his boat towing behind. He was a Mr. Drew, a member of the Melanesian Missionary Society, stationed on p299 San Christoval. He accompanied us to Ugi, and decided to go to Florida Island with us. We got in just at dark, and were met by a trader in his dingy, who piloted us to a good anchorage alongside his little ketch, a hundred yards off shore. His name was Hammond. He was an Australian who had only been here one month. The last man got frightened and left, for the natives of Malaita, a very savage island, had come down in canoes and killed nearly every trader that ever set up in business here; and he had got word from one of his boys that they were coming again. Hammond had been in the Solomons for eleven years, however, and spoke the language well. He told us that two years before he had landed at Port Mary—our last anchorage—just as the natives were coming back from San Christoval, victorious in a fight with one of the hostile tribes; and these Port Mary natives were heavily laden with war trophies, such as heads, arms and legs.
The two men stayed for supper, and we held long and interesting conversations with them, in the course of which we learned many new things of the dark islands into which we had poked the Snark's nose.
The next morning, July 3, we had the best treat we had had for ages—milk, sweet, fresh cow's milk! One glass apiece! Mr. Hammond had sent it over before we were up. I had almost forgotten that milk grew in anything except cans. Mr. and Mrs. London went ashore to see the natives, while I stayed aboard p300 to give my clothing a good overhauling, and to sew for myself some lava-lavas. Several natives came out to trade curios, but they had the same things we had gotten in Port Mary, so I did not buy.
The next day, Saturday, was the Fourth of July. In the morning we discharged a round of ammunition from each of our guns, and that was our celebration—quite different from the one the year before at Honolulu. At ten o'clock the trader came alongside in his whale-boat, manned by his Santa Cruz boys, and we went to the village. A crowd met us at the beach. The women here were clothed, each in a yard of calico. They were all Christians, so they said; but I confess that the heathens we had previously met were far more hospitable and were better looking. The old chief led us around the village, which, like the one at Port Mary, was enclosed by a low fence. The huts all faced a narrow street, and the rear of the huts was flush with the fence. The huts themselves were the dirtiest things I ever saw—of grass and sides and roof, very low, with a bamboo porch in front. On the inside was a dirty sleeping bunk of bamboo. Of other furniture there was little or none.
We returned late that afternoon, and went aboard the Snark. Jack went through the medicine chest, trying to find something that would cure the large ulcer on my shin. Every day found this growing in size and soreness; and I became seriously concerned. At Port Mary, I had asked the trader, Butler, about it, p301 and he had told me that it was a "yaw," or Solomon Island sore, to which all white men were subject. Corrosive sublimate, he further declared, was the thing to cure it. Now the result of corrosive sublimate on a large raw surface like that! It burnt like fire, but it seemed to help.
We now set out for a leisurely circuit of the larger islands. In this circuit, it was our luck to see thousands of cannibals, and also to observe the work done by the missionaries among these benighted savages. Right here, let me explain that cannibalism is not practised because of any love of human flesh, but rather because the natives believe that they acquire the fighting qualities of the men that they eat. Thus they hope to get the strength and prowess in battle of their enemies; and for his reason, they like to eat white men, whose skill and courage they admire.
We never saw a cannibal feast, but we saw plenty of evidence of the practice in the thousands of human bones on shores and reefs.
All these cannibals are head-hunters. One may see tiny mummified heads stuck up outside the huts. The more heads a man has, the stronger he imagines himself to be. A man with fifteen heads reckons himself as strong as fifteen men. The mummified heads are taken from enemies in battle. The bones are all drawn out, and then the head is dried until it is only the size of one's fist. To possess the head of a white man is a special honour. A village with a white man's p302 head considers that it has a wonderful talisman. Naturally, we took great care not to become luck-bringers for any of the natives among whom we sojourned.
Some years ago, a party of German scientists landed at Malaita, one of the most inaccessible islands in the group, to explore. They very much wanted to take back some of these heads as relics, and offered fifteen sticks of plug tobacco for each. The market was brisk for a few days, but soon all the posts outside the huts had been stripped, and the supply slackened. Then suddenly trade revived again—but it was noticed that the heads brought in were fresh! It turned out that the natives had been doing a little private killing in order to keep up the supply. One native had sacrificed several relatives in his desire to please the Germans and get their tobacco.
And then the missionaries. There are so many different kinds of missionaries in the South Seas that I must divide them into their classes and try to tell of these different classes as they appeared to me. Probably another person going among them would see them in a different light from what I did. Of course, I cannot pretend to know all about what the missionaries are doing in the South Seas, but I do know what some of them were doing. Some of them were engaged in excellent work—the noblest work in the world. And some were doing absolutely no work. Let me tell of both kinds, at the same time explaining that if some of the missionaries are not doing what they ought, p303 it is no reason why we should shut our eyes to the fact that there are others who toil eternally and well in their allotted paths. For that matter, it is the frauds who make it so hard for the missionary who works in good faith for the regeneration of the savages.
Missionaries in Polynesia I have never considered in these pages. For the eastern Pacific has reached such a stage of civilisation that the missionaries are now called preachers, and have their regular congregations, just as in civilised countries.
The first missionary I had met was Rev. Watt, at Tanna, New Hebrides. After twenty-eight years at this same station, he had managed to convert about two hundred mean, thieving little beggars. He made the natives, as a sign of conversion, wear the ragged and dirty clothing I have described, which clothes, once put on, were probably never removed. As I have said, these missionary boys stole everything they could get their hands on, but of the scores of bush natives that came aboard, we never caught one taking a thing; and the heathen natives had offered to give us a feast and to guide us to see their island, but the missionary boys we had not been able to hire to guide us, and for the fruit they brought aboard, they asked many times its value. For my part, I can see no actual good Rev. Watt has accomplished in all his twenty-eight years. Trader Wiley, the big, genial Scotchman, has done more towards civilising than has the missionary. Wiley brought about peace between many p304 of the tribes that before his advent were continually at war. He also adjusts their quarrels; and the natives come to him for advice and medicine, and for surgical operations.
Dr. Drew, the missionary we met at Ugi, is stationed on San Christoval. Dr. Drew, when he first landed, started learning the native language, and it was over a year before he began teaching the word of God to the natives, but in that year he won the natives' confidence. He worked on their pride by offering prizes for the best-built house and the cleanest house. He helped them lay out streets, and the dirty village, with its houses stuck anywhere they could find ground to put them, gradually took on a healthful, systematic look, and natives from other villages came in and built neat grass houses. Then Dr. Drew gave away as prizes one yard of blue calico, only the one colour, and soon the whole four hundred natives were wearing lava-lavas just alike in shape and colour. Dr. Drew went no further toward dressing them, for he realised that as soon as a native puts on white man's clothes he begins to imitate the white man, and to imitate the white man in that part of the world is bad policy. Dr. Drew did not attempt to become a native, but maintained his dignity all the time he was learning the language.
After he had mastered the language, Dr. Drew taught them to read in their own tongue, and then translated the Bible for them. When we of the Snark went among his four hundred Christian natives, we p305 were treated better than any natives in the South Seas had ever before treated us. And Dr. Drew caused this great revival by setting an example, and not by trying to beat religion into them. I doubt if any of the natives knew what was happening, so gradual was their uplifting, until they finally found themselves full-fledged Christians—and that kind of Christian will never backslide. If there were more such missionaries in the South Seas, cannibalism and heathenism would soon be a thing of the past. These natives now have their cricket and football teams, and Dr. Drew teaches them English, and cooking, and even boat-building and sailing.
Another missionary, Mr. Whittier, came up from Australia with a scheme to adopt the simple life. He lived in a grass house, ate native goods, wore no other clothing than the native lava-lava. His idea was to live like the natives and become one of them, thinking by this method that they would trust him better. But it was no use, for when the white man lowered himself to their level, they had no more respect for him.
As the little Snark poked her nose in and out of savage ports, the first thing we looked to see was the kind of lava-lavas the women wore. If they wore cloth lava-lavas, they were invariably Christians, but if they wore grass lava-lavas, or were naked, they were heathens. But we could never be sure of the men by this method, for they received the cloth lava-lavas from the traders in exchange for cocoanuts. Of p306 course, they kept all the traders gave them, and left the women to hustle for themselves. As may be imagined, it doesn't cost much to dress a woman in this part of the world.
The principal good done by the missionaries—the sincere missionaries—is that they take the natives out of their horrible, dirty state and teach them self-respect; and surely this is a big step toward civilisation.
The greatest good is being done by Church of England missionaries, who own the finest mission ship in the world, the Southern Cross. This ship, in its cruising among the islands, persuades the best and most intelligent natives to go with them to Norfolk Island. Here they are put in a mission school, and later returned to their homes to start schools of their own. A white missionary is left with the new convert until he has his church built and things are running smoothly; then the native is left to shift for himself. Some of the native missionaries have maintained good clean villages, but the Southern Cross is needed about twice a year to untangle the mismanaged affairs of most of the stations, for however sincere the native teacher may be, he seldom has any executive ability.
The native churches are generally the neatest buildings in the village, and are used for schools as well as for churches. The natives squat on the ground, and use rough log benches for desks. Their church-bell is a hollow log, and their contribution-box is always of cocoanut or shell. Their singing is wonderfully p307 pleasing, especially if a missionary has trained them.
The Christian natives and the heathen natives always seemed to be the best of friends. As a consequence, the most incongruous things sometimes occur. In one place, I saw a coffin-shaped box with a body sticking full of barbs, and within a few hundred feet stood a mission-house in charge of a native teacher. Native missionaries are always called teachers. Why it is, I do not know, but I have never heard a native Christian worker called a missionary.
The French traders ten years ago traded off about five hundred old Snyder rifles to the savages, and as soon as a white man is known to be about, these old rifles are gotten out for show. But they have no cartridges, and if they had, I don't believe the guns would shoot, for the muzzles of those I saw were stopped up with rust.
On the island of Florida, in the Solomons, a missionary made a whole village of converts by playing on their childlike love for display. This missionary had no influence with them for several months, until one day a government schooner anchored and half a dozen black police boys paraded the village, marching in time and carrying guns. As soon as the government vessel had departed, the boys of the villages were trying to imitate the drilling of the police boys, using their old Snyder rifles. The missionary was quick to take advantage of this opportunity to get into their confidence, p308 and, by drilling the boys, he was soon in their good graces; and gradually he turned their love of pomp and display into more useful channels. And now he has a well-founded mission-station and his chief asset is his teams of drilled, athletic boys. Other teachers, encouraged by his success, have taken up athletic work among their followers.
One great difficulty to be overcome by these wilderness apostles is the lack of concentration in savage minds. It is difficult to keep a native's attention long enough to teach him a lesson or to instill moral precepts.
I have noticed that doctors always make the best missionaries. Their medical treatment will give them a hold and win them confidence where nothing else could. Also, a man is a better missionary than a woman, among these savages. For a woman is not respected. A big, strong, athletic man, who can do things that the natives see with their own eyes are better than what they can do, will always have a following, but the man who relies solely upon preaching will never do any good. But to be perfectly fair, I must say that most of the missionaries whom I saw were putting skill and enthusiasm into their work, toiling by day and by night, and in most cases these simple teachers were not putting forth their time and toil in vain. p309
CHAPTER XIII
OCEANIC CRUISING
The Solomon group is divided into German and British Solomons, but the British section, about twenty-five large and small islands, being the more interesting, we did not bother to look much into the German section.
The large islands of Guadalcanar, Malaita, San Christoval, and Ysabel are as yet entirely unexplored in the interior. In none of these islands has anyone been back more than a few miles from the coast.
On the island of Guadalcanar, an island eighty miles long and forty miles wide, are half a dozen plantations and a trading and mission station, in which probably twenty-five persons live. Their homes are well guarded and stockaded, but even with the most rigid precautions, a white man is set down as missing at frequent intervals. Only a few months ago, I received a letter from a friend in the Solomons, telling of the massacre of a trader at a station where the Snark once anchored.
After our cruise in the western islands, the Snark dropped anchor at the largest plantation in the Solomons, called Penduffryn, on the island of Guadalcanar, owned and managed by two Englishmen, George Darbishire and Thomas Harding. p310
As Mrs. London was not feeling well when we anchored here, she was left at the plantation, while Jack and I and the two Kanakas and two Japs took the Snark over to the island of Tulagi, twenty-five miles away. The engine ran all the way. We made the twenty-five miles in three hours, dropping anchor at Tulagi late in the evening. Jack and I went up the side of an old extinct volcano to the house of the Governor of the British Solomons. The Governor was away, but the Assistant Governor received us, and promptly fined Jack £5 for not getting pratique papers here first. Otherwise we were treated hospitably. Late that night Jack set out in a whale-boat for Penduffryn, leaving the rest of us to get the boat cleaned with the help of the Governor's native recruits. For one week, twenty native divers scraped the Snark's keel with cocoanut husks, and in company with a government engineer, I took the Snark on short cruises, testing the engines, and after everything had been thoroughly overhauled, I took the Snark back across the straits of Penduffryn, and went ashore to find a regular reunion of white men.
There were traders old and young, beche-de-mer fishermen, old beach-combers and blackbirders. All were delighted to hear that visitors were at Penduffryn. For one week, this largest group of white men that ever gathered on the island of Guadalcanar made things hum with good time. Everyone was so happy—and we acted like children. We had big card games p311 and even a masquerade ball. Darbishire, who was always the life of the plantation, dressed as an English lady, and I was his partner to the dance. The music did not amount to much, but Mrs. London's Hawaiian ukelele made enough for us to dance by. The merrymaking lasted several days, until it ended by all present agreeing to take the Oriental dope called hashish.
Darbishire was the first to partake. After he had passed under the influence, we decorated him with parts of Mrs. London's clothes, and I did a little artistic work with water-colours. For several days he went around the house in a half-dazed state, and would at times drop dead asleep while standing on his feet. One after another took this hashish, until the night Jack took it. He went clear off his head, acted so wild that Mrs. London was frightened; and no one else would take it. Next night was to have been my turn.
At Penduffryn they have seven native boys trained to cook and do the housework, so it was very little that the white people had to do. During the day I usually worked aboard the Snark, rowing ashore at night for late dinner. And then I was busy a good deal of the time with my photographic work.
I seldom moved about at night, alone. The natives were pretty restless just then at Lunga, a station fourteen miles below here: eight blacks from Malaita working at the station ran away to the bush, and threatened p312 to get some white heads, then, stealing a boat, to go back to Malaita. One day, at Penduffryn, a lot of powder and cartridges was found in a hut belonging to a native. The man was taken to the house and handcuffed, and all the recruits were called in from work. Then Mr. Harding told them that the man was going to be sent to the Governor, who would sentence him to three years hard, unpaid labour. Until a boat left, no one was to speak to him. But the next morning, when his handcuffs were taken off, the culprit bolted, and thereafter made his appearance among the other natives at night, inciting them to kill every white man at Penduffryn.
After the loot was found, a search was made of all the houses, and two fellows were found to have spears. Again all the men were called from work, and before them all these two fellows were forced to strip their lava-lavas; and Mr. Darbishire, with a big boor-hide whip, gave them the worst licking I ever saw anyone get. He made deep cuts in their hide, from which the blood spurted. It nearly made me sick, but I knew the whipping was necessary; for it is solely by intimidation that the white man rules in the Solomons.
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Meanwhile, things were going badly with the Snark crew.
Henry and Tehei were down with island fever. Nakata had caught ngari-ngari, or scratch-scratch. Jack had terrible yaws, and I had equally terrible yaws. We, too, took occasional spells of fever. Dosings of p313 quinine and applications of corrosive sublimate and blue vitriol were daily occurrences. The blue vitriol drove me nearly crazy—Jack called it horse doctoring; but it was the best that I could do. Henry developed bukua on his face; Tehei fainted several times, and wept and prayed; all this made us the most invalided crew ever seen in the South Seas. This much I learned, however, from our tribulations: anyone coming to the Solomons should first purchase a barrel of quinine for the fever and a barrel of corrosive sublimate for the yaws, and leave an order for more to follow.
I was looking forward to getting out of this particular part of the world. It was too wild and raw, too full of sickness and sudden death. How I longed for a real bed, with sheets, in a place where it was not too hot to sleep! The rain pretty near drove us out of the Snark. We had awning all over the deck, and side curtains, but the tropical showers that blew up in a minute and swept away the next were fast and furious while they lasted. No matter how well the canvas was set, the rain got through and pushed below to our bunks. But I determined that in Australia I would get two large ventilators for my room. Then no rain could bother me, for the hatch would be shut. Also, I was thinking seriously of fitting up my bunk with sheets. If the Snark was to be home to me for several years to come, I might as well arrange for comfort. p314
Because of Henry's and Tehei's sickness, Jack thought it best to get a white man to look after things, so he hired a German named Harry Jacobsen; a man who had been mate of the Minota, a recruiting schooner that had gone ashore on Malaita and been looted by the savage islanders. The Minota had been recovered, but just now was not putting out, so Jack was able to get Mr. Jacobsen without much trouble. Our machinery had gone wrong, and we had to wait at Penduffryn until fresh parts came from Sydney, Australia. It was during this wait that the Minota was fitted out for another recruiting trip to Malaita. Captain Jansen and Mr. Jacobsen invited Jack and Mrs. London to go along on this blackbirding cruise; so I was left in charge of the Snark.
Soon afterward, only twenty-five miles away, the Minota grounded on the Mallua Reef, close to the cannibal island of Malaita. Soon they were surrounded by scores of man-eaters in canoes. Of course, Jack and all the rest were well armed, but the savages were so numerous and so treacherous that a day-and-night watch had to be kept against a surprise and a terrible death. They sent up rockets, which, as a matter of fact, I saw; but I had no idea that it was the Minota which was in trouble. I thought some other vessel was on the rocks. Anyway, I was quite unable to go to their help, with my engines out of order. Their safety during the time taken to re-float the Minota was really owing to the efforts of a missionary—one p315 of the few missionaries in the Solomons who had any influence with the cannibals. He got his mission-boys to form a guard for passengers and crew, and thus averted the peril. Poor fellow! he was killed soon after.
In addition to the yaws and the fever, a new trouble came into the life of the Snark family. Jack's hands had begun to swell up, turn very sore, and peel skin. The nails were very hard and thick, and had to be filed. And it was the same with his feet. Nothing like it had ever been heard of before. The traders and beach-combers could diagnose yaws and fever, but not this. Both Jack and Mrs. London were considerably alarmed at this strange manifestation. "It is plain we are not wanted in the South Seas," Jack said, more than once. "California is the place for me."
"And me for Kansas," I assured him.
Wada and Nakata began to dilate upon the virtues of Japan, while Henry and Tehei were praying day and night that they might get back safely to the Society Islands.
After we had lain at Penduffryn a time, Mr. London decided that we would make a visit to the fabled Ontong Java islands that the traders were telling us so much about. They were situated about two hundred miles away from the Solomons, and their exact location was not known. The people were said to be of a queer race, and as we were out to see the unusual, we set sail from Penduffryn, and after two days' beating p316 up the Invincible Straits, we anchored at the island of Ysabel, and lay there seventeen days, trading and hunting wild game. Here Wada, the cook, went clean out of his head, and running away, went to live in a village of coast natives; and we were compelled to sail off without him. Jack promised Nakata a new suit of clothes if he would do the cooking until we reached a port where we could get a new cook. Nakata tried to hold his own job and the cook's job, but got sick, and then Tehei and Henry and I took turn-about getting meals. When we sailed away from Ysabel, we were forced to cut loose our big eight-hundred-pound anchor, for it had gotten caught in the coral reefs so tightly that it was impossible for us to get it out.
Ontong Java is about two hundred miles to the west of Ysabel. Now and then a trading vessel comes here, and once a year a steamer collects the annual output of copra. I suppose the steamer knows the position. Certainly it is never gotten from the chart.
The first day out of Ysabel we had fine weather, but the next day the sea got rough, and for six days it rained and blew as it only can in the tropics; and to add to our discomfort, Tehei got blackwater fever and lay down on deck fully decided to die. Nakata was still sick, and to cap matters he got a second dose of ptomaine poisoning. Mrs. London and Jack came down with fever, and their yaws grew worse. Henry's bukua continued to bother him. And I daily writhed in the agony of alternate washes of blue vitriol and corrosive p317 sublimate. We were so sick and miserable that very little attention was paid to the navigating, and for several days we sailed in a half-hearted way, looking for the islands. One day, Jack's observations indicated that we were inside the lagoon, and next day we had sailed clear past the islands. But one morning Henry called all hands on deck to see the cocoanut trees just visible above the horizon. We sailed up the coast of small islands, some of them only large enough for one cocoanut tree, and the greatest no larger than an ordinary city block. These thirty-nine islands circled around a lagoon ten miles wide. Not one of these islands was over two feet above the water-line, and absolutely the only vegetation was the thickly growing cocoanut trees.
While looking for an opening between the little islands, a canoe with two occupants paddled off from one of the islands and we let them aboard. It was certainly a surprise to see Polynesians again, instead of the little woolly-headed negroids of the Solomons. These men were big, brown-skined, straight-haired fellows—that is, their hair would have been straight, had they ever combed it. As they came over the rail, Henry spoke to them in his own tongue; and what was our amazement to hear them answer him. And then Tehei decided that he wouldn't die, and started talking to them.
Our surprise will be appreciated when I say that these people's rightful home was five thousand miles p318 to the eastward. They did not know that there were any others in this part of the world who could speak their language. They piloted us inside the lagoon, and then to our further surprise we saw a white man's frame house on the beach of the largest island. When we dropped anchor, this man came aboard, and a happy man he was that day. For it was a lonesome time he had, with a sight of white people only once a year, when the steamer came after his copra.
He was a Dutchman, and had lived here so long that he had almost forgotten how to speak English. We came ashore with him, and went directly to his home. While we were there a small boy brought up a tiny shark's jaw and presented it to Jack with the king's compliments. As we had bought these small jaws for a half-stick of tobacco, Jack was disgusted and started to throw it away, but I asked for it and he gave it to me.
Then we were taken to see the king, who was squatting on a mat in the centre of a large grass house, his half-dozen wives seated around him. We shook hands, and with the trader as interpreter Jack made the king a present of coloured calico and some tobacco, and then told the king that he must give us a hundred cocoanuts in return. The old king started to say no, until Jack made as if to take back his presents, when the king hastily ordered the cocoanuts to be sent aboard. We went on through the village and came to the graveyard, and it was the most remarkable graveyard p319 I have ever seen. The graves lay so close together that there was scarcely room for a tombstone. The tombstones were straight slabs of granite, with no writing, but some of them had queer heads attached. There were no mounds over the graves—they sparkled with pure white sand, beaten flat; and all the graves were levelled off the same way, until they appeared like a long, paved sidewalk. At the outer edge of the graveyard were three wooden crosses that marked the graves of the former wives of the Dutch trader. He pointed to the three graves with pride, and later on he showed us his three living wives. He informed us that if one of them didn't make copra better he might find it necessary to make a cross for her—and I believe he meant it. For he was very brutal. A fine handsome young fellow had attached himself to our party wherever we went, and once the Dutchman gave him a crushing blow with his fist, apparently without reason. After that, Obi held aloof.
On going back to the trader's house, we noticed a Solomon Islander working around the place. When we asked why this native should be so far away from home, we learned that he had been recruited about five years before to work on a plantation for the trading company, and had been put at this lagoon to prevent his getting way. Those who have read Jack London's story, "Mauki," will understand, for this native was the original of that interesting character. p320
We lay at this lagoon for nearly a week. I got a great deal of fine coral in all colours of the rainbow, but it all faded white, except the red, which was so brittle that it broke to pieces. I saw trees of coral twenty feet high, and wonderful gardens of it, through which parrot-coloured fish swam in and out.
After piling our cockpit full of green cocoanuts that the king's subjects had selected for us, we had prepared to leave, when word came to us that across the lagoon were two missionaries, a Samoan and a Tonga Islander, who wanted to see us. The Dutchman had been careful not to tell us of them, for a very good reason.
Why the Dutchman did not want us to know of these missionaries, perhaps the most remarkable in the world, we soon learned after we had left this lagoon and stumbled on to another.
Two years before the time we were at Ontong Java, the mission-ship Southern Cross had steamed into this harbour with two missionaries, one of them from Samoa, the other from the Tonga Islands. These two men tried hard to land, but the natives said no, that their idols were good enough for them and they had no desire to change—if the white men wanted to land there would be no resistance, but no dark-skinned natives were going to be allowed to tell them about new gods.
The Southern Cross could not afford to remain long at this place, for it kept them moving to make their rounds twice a year, so the two missionaries were left p321 with fifty days' food and water in an open boat. Then for fifty days these missionaires tried to land, but were met with spears at the beach; and when the food and water was all gone, the Dutch trader took pity on them, and told the king that he had received a message from the great white master, saying that if the men were not allowed to land they would send schooners and kill everyone on the islands.
The king then allowed the trader to take the men in his house and nurse them; and after they returned to health they built neat grass houses and tried to work among the islanders, but their work went slowly and it was not until the Dutch trader killed one of his wives and the missionaries proved it on him that they gained any hold. Then the missionaries started a crusade against the trader, but the natives did not have the courage to deport him, and it got so warm for the missionaries that they were notified to leave the largest island and never return. Then these missionaries went to live on another island, and for years they never saw any civilised people, for the trader took good care that no vessels ever anchored across the lagoon. When we of the Snark sailed over to them, they cried, they were so glad to see white people. We gave them potatoes and tinned goods, and promised to report them at the government station when we got back to the Solomons.
We then sailed out of the lagoon and headed west with a large crowd of natives following in canoes. We p322 were clear of the islands by sundown, and Jack set the course for another lagoon that was reported to be some two hundred miles farther west, and the watches were set with confidence of a perfect night's rest. Just enough wind was blowing to keep the sails full, and there was scarcely a ripple on the water. Wada and Tehei kept their watch; then I was called on deck, and was lazily smoking and steering at the wheel. Everyone else was asleep on deck and I was only enough awake to keep the Snark's head on the course, when I heard a slight rustling on the water ahead, which increased in volume until it rose into the unmistakable roar of a reef. Hastily bringing the vessel up into the wind, I roused all hands and after a good look at the reef, Jack ordered the Snark about, and until morning we beat back and forth. When daylight came we were in sight of another small lagoon that looked like Ontong Java in miniature. We had no trouble getting inside the reef, and sailed five miles across the lagoon to the largest island, and dropped anchor. In no time at all our decks were crowded with big, brown Polynesians, who, while they seemed healthy fellows, appeared absolutely devoid of intellect.
We tried hard to get some spears, but the natives refused to sell, no matter what we offered. There were about fifty of them: soon they began chanting a weird kind of song. We found that this was in honour of their king, who was on his way out to us.
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Shortly a canoe finer than the rest came alongside, and the old bewhiskered king, a fine old chap with nose-rings and ear-rings, came over the rail. We received a shock, for his body was covered with tattooed designs of guns. The old fellow ordered the natives to the stern of the boat, and, advancing, made us a speech of welcome. We tried to get his King-spear, a beautifully carved weapon, designed to catch a victim going or coming, but he would not part with it. Of course, we were expected to make the king a present. It had been a joke with us about the useless things that kings and chiefs had been giving us; so more in the spirit of a jest than anything else, Mrs. London gave this king an old night-gown of hers. He seemed so vastly pleased that Mrs. London put it on him. That did the trick: he was so delighted that he at once gave us his King-spear; and for days we saw him running about the island in the night-gown, the proudest man in the world, and certainly the best-dressed native for miles around.
With the idea of showing us what a great and lordly king he was, he invited us ashore, and parading us through the village, he called all his subjects together and made a speech to them. I don't know what he said, but they were highly pleased; and that night a dance was given for us. We noticed the same people we had seen in the afternoon; and next day, on going to some of the close-by islands, we found them uninhabited, and gradually it dawned upon us p324 that the first group of people we had seen were the sole inhabitants of the Tasman Lagoon. On counting them, we found fifty-nine men and forty-eight women, and only one baby. It was easy to see the finish of these people. They had married and intermarried until every solitary native was closely related to every other native; and should they continue to intermarry so closely, should there be no infusion of fresh blood, their race must become thoroughly idiotic, and soon go down to death.
I believe the most peculiar trait of these people was their idol or devil-devil worship. They had no good god, but believed that if they kept their devil-devil in good humour, everything would be well, and that if the devil-devil should get angry, they would have floods and diseases and everything in general would go to ruin. To keep the devil-devil in good humour, they had built large houses with fresh mats for him to sleep on; and every boat or house that was built must first be passed on by their wooden devil-devil, and by certain signs they could tell whether he was pleased or not. One of these devils I sent back to America, and I still have it.
At this island, we found another of those queer graveyards that we had seen in Ontong Java. There were hundreds and hundreds of these strange graves, which proved that the reefs comprising this lagoon had once been well inhabited. p325
We collected several of their peculiar grass dresses at this place. I secured one just before it was finished.
There are dozens of islands in the Solomon group where few white men have ever been seen in the interior, and there are islands where a white man has never been seen at all. We made a call at one of these places—quite an accidental call. We were caught in the tail end of a hurricane and were blown about for a time, not knowing in the least where we were. Then there came a sudden calm, and we found ourselves near a little group of islands. Presently, the natives came out in canoes to see us. They were quite naked, and had straight hair standing out in huge masses around their heads. When they saw us, they were the most amazed people in the world. They felt our white skins, and rubbed them, to see if the colour would come off. Everything was bewildering to them. Once we thought that they were getting dangerous, and I presented my revolver at one of them. The man coolly took it by the muzzle, thinking it was a toy meant as a present. As with all the other savages, they were delighted with the mechanical toys we showed them. A Jack-in-the-box would keep a huge chief happy for hours. One of them found an old file, and thought it the greatest treasure in the world.
They left us rather suddenly. It was my fault. p326 Thinking to amuse them, I started the dynamo with which we lighted the boat, and gave one of them a shock. He yelled, jabbered something to the others, and at once they all sprang overboard and swam ashore. They didn't stop for their canoes, which we were obliged to cut adrift.
At night, a lot of them stood on the beach looking at us. We turned the searchlight on them, and as it swept along the shore, they shrieked and fled. Nor did they stop until they had reached the other end of the island, two miles away.
That particular island was not marked on our chart, nor was it on the latest and best charts that I later consulted at Sydney. Until we went to the place, the people believed that their little speck of an island, hundreds of miles from any other land, was the whole world. They knew nothing of tobacco or gin, which are so dear to other South Sea Islanders. And I have little doubt that there are many other islands hereabouts, where the natives believe themselves the only human beings in existence.
Strangely enough, the natives were never frightened or annoyed when I took photographs. They did not understand what it was all about, and they didn't care. But when I developed the plates and showed them their own pictures, they were delighted. In many places, they had never seen a picture before. There was one old chief whose photograph I took. When I showed him a print, he at once sent messengers to all the p327 islands round, and the people trooped in to see the wonder. I suppose they're still admiring it, if they haven't worn it out with admiration.
We made fast time back to the Solomons. We spent several days beating through the Manning Straits between the islands of Ysabel and Choiseul. The tides ran so strong here that it was all we could do to get through, and in many places we would pass clusters of little islands so slowly that the natives in canoes would surround us, and try to get aboard, but these woolly-headed people were so savage-looking that we did not care to allow them on our deck.
In this strait we passed queer little islands built upon reefs out from the main islands. These little handmade islands were inhabited as thickly as the people could stick on them, by coast natives that had been driven off the larger islands by the bush men coming down to the salt-water villages; and when the coast natives were forced to retreat, there was no place for them to go except to the reefs, so gradually there sprang up a reef-dwelling people who are never allowed to land on the mainland. As the bush boys are afraid of the water, they never attempt to make canoes, and the reef natives control the water so effectively that the bush men dare not even fish in the salt water; and as the reef natives cannot produce enough cocoanuts and fruit to keep them in a variety of foods, the two tribes compromise by allowing their women to come together on the beach, where fish are traded p328 for fruits and nuts. Men never dare come to the market-place where this trading is effected.
During the hurricane a few years ago, several of these islands were destroyed, and for several weeks the inhabitants were paddling among the different islands looking for a safe place to land. Some landed at hostile places and were killed. Others started new villages in uninhabited places; and some were unfortunate enough to land near plantations, and were forced into service. The traders were only too glad to get new recruits without the expense of blackbirding them.
As we passed out of the Manning Straits, we sailed past part of the German Solomons. On clear days we could see patrols of war canoes paddling up and down the coasts of the different islands, and often would pass close to small canoes on fishing trips. We let some of the natives come aboard the Snark and traded for the fish they carried. I believe that was one of the most interesting experiences that fell to me in the South Seas—to see these different people in their canoes, and now and then to stop to trade with them or to make photographs.
We dropped anchor for two days at an island north of Guadalcanar, where we knew there was a plantation. We were treated hospitably by Mr. Nichols, the owner of the plantation. And here we discovered another interesting bit of history in regard to Henry, our Polynesian sailor. Some years before, Mr. p329 Nichols had managed a pearling station on Christmas Island, and Henry was his chief diver. He had found a pearl that was worth a large sum of money, and when he turned it over to Mr. Nichols, he and Nichols were attacked by the other pearl divers and the pearl was stolen. The natives took it to Papeete, Tahiti, where they sold it for half its value. Mr. Nichols asked as a favour that Henry might stay ashore a couple of days with him; and then the two got together like a couple of old soldiers talking over the war.
It was early in the morning that we slid out of the island, on the most perfect day possible. We pushed down the coast of Guadalcanar, the awnings set and the engines running smoothly. Not a bit of wind was stirring. As we three white people were now in an awful state with yaws, and Jack's mysterious sickness was growing worse all the time, it was decided that we should get back to Penduffryn by the time the steamer arrived, so that we could get our wounds doctored. The blue vitriol washes were driving us to distraction, but thus only could we keep the disease from spreading.
Finally, after being away two months, we dropped anchor again at Penduffryn. On going ashore, we found the traders organising to make a trip into the interior of the island, to make moving pictures among the real cannibals. Mr. Harding had been trying for several years to get enough persons together to make p330 this expedition. Here, too, another surprise awaited us. It was Wada, our cook, who had deserted us at Ysabel, now miraculously returned. He seemed to have recovered his reason, so Jack put him once more into the galley of the Snark.
The three moving picture men had been sent from Paris by Pathé Frêres, famous the world over, to make pictures of the reception of the American fleet in Sydney. Having finished the fleet pictures, it was up to them to bring back some good cinematographic records of the Solomon Islands cannibals. For the first week they were kept busy at Penduffryn, unpacking and setting up their machines. Then all three, not being used to the damp climate, had fallen sick with island fever, and so could not make their inland trip until they had recovered. Meanwhile, their chemicals, which had been thoughtlessly unpacked, rapidly deteriorated in the tropical atmosphere; and there was no place to buy chemicals short of Australia. However, the chemicals used on moving pictures are the same as those used on ordinary films, so I was able to supply sufficient material to last them until they got back to Australia. Harding and Darbishire made preparations for the trip, and were as enthusiastic as children. For when white men exist for years on a plantation without associating with others of their race, they are apt to run wild when they come in contact with a bunch of good fellows.
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We went up the Balesuna River six miles to a village, p331 named Charley after a native who had once worked on the Penduffryn plantation. This was the first time a white man had ever set foot in the interior of the island of Guadalcanar. We were gone some time, and secured some very unique and interesting pictures.
By this time, our yaws and Jack's undiagnosed illness were so bad that we were anxiously waiting for the steamer. The doctors of Australia were our only hope. Henry, Tehei, and the two Japs had practically recovered from their ailments, but we white people found life in the Solomons more trying every day. The two Tahitians and Wada were to take charge of the Snark and lie at Aola, Guadalcanar, until we could resume the voyage, which we hoped would be before long. On Tuesday, November 3, the steamship Makambo dropped anchor at Penduffryn, and lay all day discharging cargo and taking on copra and ivory-nuts. That evening, Jack gave a big champagne dinner to the Penduffrynites; then we went aboard, to sail next morning, but the anchor-chain got foul, and we did not get away until Wednesday noon. We went to Neil Island, where we anchored for the night, and then to Aola, where the Snark was lying. Thursday noon we steamed out of the Solomons.
It seemed good to be on a large vessel like the Makambo after being so long on the Snark. She seemed as steady as a house, and I couldn't understand why only a few persons came to meals. Had they p332 been on the tiny Snark, doing a corkscrew twist out in the sea, I could have understood readily. The Makambo seemed like a very big ship to me after our own boat; but the truth is, she was one of the smallest ships in the South Sea trade. I had a deck-cabin with a fine room-mate—a doctor from New Guinea. Only one thing about him was unpleasant—his delirium tremens. He had them two days. All night he caught snakes and cockroaches; and whenever he missed a large snake, he woke me up to catch it for him. Oh, it was lovely for a sick man! Jack and Mrs. London had the captain's room on the bridge, so that they could keep up with their work.
On Tuesday, November 10, we sighted land, and for the rest of the day steamed off shore. How good it seemed to see real land again—not cocoanut trees that just lifted out of the water, but real land! I felt so good that I had to practise a new profession of mine upon some of the passengers. While at Penduffryn, I had learned much. One day Mr. Harding told us of a black boy of his that could make fire. We asked for a demonstration. The black came up with two pieces of dry driftwood, and in less than one minute had made fire, sufficient to start up a cook-stove. Well, it looked so easy that I bet Jack that I could do it inside half an hour; but when the bet was made, they all told me that it was impossible for a white man to do it. Jack said he had never seen a black do it before, and that he had always regarded p333 it as a myth in story-books. Anyway, I set to work, and at the end of the half-hour I did not even have a smoke started; so I lost the bet. But I was not discouraged. I kept at it, and went among the blacks. They taught me the trick, and still I could not do it; but after working at it for several days, I learned to do it quicker than even the blacks could do it. After that, it was so easy! I brought two pieces of wood along, and on the day we sighted land, I made a bet with one of the passengers that I could make fire, and I won in a walk. Then I bet him ten shillings that he could not do it in half an hour—and of course, I won.
It was on Sunday, November 15, 1908, that we approached Sydney. We got off the heads at ten in the morning, and for two hours steamed up what is supposed to be the finest harbour in the world. Certainly, I saw more big steamers and large full-rigged ships at anchor and in the docks than I ever saw in the New York or the San Francisco harbours. It all seemed American, what of the great sign-boards on every side, and it got more American as we went along. I could hardly restrain my impatience to get ashore.
Australia at last! Not under the exact circumstances we had planned, but Australia at last. Our hearts were very light as the Makambo's anchor rumbled down in Sydney Harbor, and we found ourselves once more in civilisation. p334
CHAPTER XIV
THE END OF THE VOYAGE
At the dock, I got my luggage and Jack's ashore and into a van, while Jack and Mrs. London went on up to the Metropole Hotel. After the luggage had passed the customs, I left it with Nakata, and got in a cab which took me to my rooms in Elizabeth Street. As I passed through the streets of Sydney, I could almost imagine I was in Chicago, with its traffic and hurry, its bustling and crowding. The Sydney street railways seemed to give excellent service. The stores are on the American plan, not the little shops so common in England. I had expected to see a city very much English, but my sober judgment is that Sydney is much more American than otherwise. In my Kansas home, I had always supposed Australia to be a bush country; so it was an agreeable surprise to find it as civilised as the States.
Sydney has nearly three quarters of a million people, and they dress and talk like Americans. There are dozens of good theatres, wherein are often enacted American plays. ("The Girl from the Golden West," and "The Merry Widow," were on at that very time.) About the only thing I could find fault with at first glance was the excessive amount of jewellery worn p335 by the women, and, as it seemed to me, very old-fashioned jewellery—the kind we had sold over our counters in Independence a dozen years before. But anyway, I had a special grudge against all jewellery, after seeing the South Sea Islanders with their shell finger-rings, their big nose-and ear-rings, and uncouth anklets and bracelets, for, after all, was it not the same instinct for barbaric adornment that actuated the rude natives and the highly decorated women of Australia? or that actuates jewellery-wearing people the world round?
The manager of the moving picture expedition at Penduffryn had given me a letter to his agents, asking that they secure these rooms in Elizabeth Street for me. It was a suite of three well-furnished rooms, cool and comfortable, and heavenly after the weary months at sea, where I had slept in a bunk some inches too short for me. It had been six months since I had slept ashore—at Vila, New Hebrides, was the last place—and it was with difficulty I could persuade the rooms to stand still. I caught myself propping things up so they wouldn't roll off the table or the dresser; and it seemed strange that my bed did not buck and try to pitch me out on the floor.
That evening I dined with the Londons, and then we went to the theatre. Mrs. London still had attacks of island fever. Jack had had the fever in its worst form. But none the less, we enjoyed this evening, which, for all we knew, might be the last we could p336 spend together for a long time; for on the morrow, the Londons were to go into hospital.
They went to the St. Malo Hospital, in Ridge Street, North Sydney. Here the doctors found that Jack was indeed a very sick man. The fever they could subdue, but his mysterious ailment baffled them. Jack's hands grew worse every day.
I went to a doctor, who burnt out my yaws with caustic potash. He advised me to lay up for a time, but I foolishly disregarded his counsel, and walked about the streets of Sydney. As a consequence, my yaws and fever grew more troublesome, and I was forced to go to bed. It all ended by my going into the Sydney Homeopathic Hospital, in Cleveland Street. Here I received competent medical treatment, under which my yaws rapidly healed. But the island fever has a trick of recurring most unexpectedly; and so it was with me. Just as I thought myself cured, another attack of fever would prostrate me.
As I lay in that hospital, I often wondered what would be the next stage of our journey. Where next would the little Snark carry her anxious crew? From now on, we would find ourselves among people very much different from the men and women of the South Seas. The world was broad, I reflected; there was no knowing what further adventures might come our way, or what strange things our wanderings would show us. One thing was sure. Greater things lay before us than we had left behind. Much as we had p337 seen, we still had much to see. And I lay there and planned the various things I would do when I got well to make life on the yacht more comfortable; the appliances I would buy, the ventilators needed, and a hundred and one other things.
And then everything was dashed in a minute. The matron of the hospital brought me a letter from Jack, which contained discouraging news. I learned that he was little better; and that he might be getting much worse. His fever was pretty well conquered, but his other ailment was unrelieved.
This other ailment was a puzzler. "The doctors do not know what it is," ran the letter. "The biggest specialist in Australia in skin-diseases has examined me, and his verdict is that not only in his own experience has he never seen anything like it, but that no line is to be found about it in any of the medical libraries. My hands are getting worse. They are so bad to-day that I cannot close them. What it may lead to, I do not know; but one thing I do know, and that is that I must get back to my own climate. I shall have to give up my voyage around the world. I shall have a captain . . . to bring the Snark down to Sydney, where I shall sell her. The steamer does not sail for between three and four weeks from now. I shall want you to go back on said steamer, and run the engines, etc., on the trip down to Sydney . . . I can assure you that I am not a bit happy over all this." p338
I was dazed. I experienced a sense of deep loss. For an hour I did not know what to do. To abandon the voyage! To sell the yacht! For two years the Snark had been home to me; and now I could hardly bear to think of quitting her.
Securing my clothes from the matron, I went to the St. Malo Hospital and enquired for Jack. I was shown up to where he was lying. Mrs. London was in bed in the same room, sick with the fever. She could scarcely speak of the Snark, she felt so bad. Jack's hands were certainly in terrible condition. The skin was thick and hard, so that he could hardly close them. And, of course, it was impossible for him to write. He explained to me. There were many chances to see the world, he said, and many voyages; but he had only one pair of hands. Writing was his profession. He could not give it up. Therefore, the voyage of the Snark must be abandoned. The doctor had told him that even if he were cured, the affliction might return should he go among the deadly Solomons again. Furthermore, a change of diet was necessary. The things we had aboard the Snark were not suited to the needs of a sick man. Fresh fruit and vegetables, and fresh meats—not canned foods and salted meats—were what he must have. So back he was going to California, his native state, where his health had always been perfect.
This was on December 9, 1908. The steamer Moresby, on which a captain and myself were to go p339 back to the Solomons after the Snark, did not sail till the 31st. With good luck, we ought to be back in Sydney by February 1.
The interval I spent in sightseeing. Australia is a very interesting place, and, as I have said, reminds one very much of the States. In the business section, the streets are extremely narrow, but elsewhere they broaden out. The street-car service is excellent, as is the railway service. On the express trains they have large American engines and the broad-gauge tracks.
The people are very enterprising; but I think the heads of government must all be preachers or missionaries, judging by the strange laws they make. For instance: Unless a person is a guest at a hotel, he is not allowed in on Sunday; if he wishes to see a friend at one of the big hotels, he must stand outside until the friend is called. The street-cars stop during church hours, both in the morning and in the evening, and so do the trains—even the fast express trains stop wherever they happen to be at the time, and do not start up again until church service is over. Few restaurants are open on Sunday; and there are no Sunday papers.
Anything said about Sydney is not complete without a mention of the harbour—the largest and finest in the world. It is miles and miles around, from head to head, and the water is deep enough anywhere for the greatest vessel to float. Almost anywhere, a ship can tie up to the shore. An enormous amount p340 of shipping goes in and out of the heads every day; about a dozen lines run to Europe by way of South Africa and the Suez canal; and there are nearly as many lines to America. A hundred steamers ply from here to the South Seas and Asia. And there are tramp steamers and independent sailing vessels.
When I went to see one ship off for the Gilbert and Ellis Islands, I was amazed to find several old friends. The first officer I had met in Vila, New Hebrides. On a nearby sailing vessel I met old David Wiley, the trader we had visited at Tanna. And Mr. Darbishire was leaving on the steamer for the Gilberts, to take up a government position at Ocean Island. The crew was composed of Gilbert Islanders, the first I had ever seen.
Near the close of December, Jack and Mrs. London came out of hospital. We went to the great Johnson-Burns prize fight; and while it was not much of a fight—too one-sided, for the negro was by far the better man—I would not have missed it for anything. The Australians are worse negro-haters even than Americans, and they hooted Johnson and cheered Burns—which was not at all fair; and I did not grieve much to see their idol beaten until he looked like a piece of raw beefsteak.
Jack wrote up the fight for the American press, and then gave me the original manuscript, which I value highly. My valuation will be justified when I say that, with one exception, I am the only person in the p341 world to whom has been given an original manuscript of Jack London, though more than one has asked.
I had Christmas dinner with Mr. Darbishire at the Hotel Metropole. I ran the risk of arrest by going in on a holiday. Just imagine a Christmas dinner in a tropical climate. I had always associated Christmas with some amount of snow. And we had no cranberries! Christmas without cranberries! But we made up for other deficiencies with the finest of strawberries, and watermelon; which is something my friends in America never do have at this season of the year.
At last we secured our captain—an old man who seemed to know considerable of the South Seas. Jack and Mrs. London and Nakata went over to Hobart, Tasmania, where it was thought the cooler climate would be better for them. Captain Reed and I boarded the Moresby and left Sydney at ten o'clock on the evening of January 8. We should have left much earlier, but delayed cargo kept the ship waiting.
There were fourteen first class passengers on board. Two were French missionaries, and the rest traders; these last returning to the islands after a few weeks of drunkenness in Sydney. (They called it their "vacation.") In the morning they all looked alike—like pieces of yellow cheese-cloth. Three or four were down to breakfast, but soon left—one man with his hand rather suspiciously over his mouth. p342
The old captain who was to navigate the Snark back to Sydney seemed a queer old chap. As he read much and talked little, we got along all right. Soon I felt so good that I had to go round tantalising the seasick people. I knew most of the traders. I opened a fresh box of chocolates, and with exaggerated generosity passed them around. One fellow was so ungrateful as to throw a stick at me.
The Moresby was a regular old tub—not so large as the Makambo, that we had come down in. Built in 1879, she was condemned in 1905, as the underwriters declared the boilers were not safe; but they gave them a coat of paint, and the Moresby continued to run. The accommodations were not bad—electric lights, fans, and very good food. The officers and the stewardess were very jolly. While I was sorry to leave Sydney, if only for a few weeks, I found my sorrow somewhat alloyed by the very good time I had aboard the Moresby. We were to get into Brisbane on the 11th, and from there it is only nine or ten days to the Solomons.
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We got in Brisbane on Monday morning. After finding out that we would not sail until ten o'clock that night, the most of the passengers went up to the city. I got away from the crowd, and walked around to see the place. I think, if I were going to live in Australia, I should choose Brisbane in preference to Sydney. Sydney is a livelier and busier city, and Brisbane is just the opposite: quiet and slow; but it has p343 such broad, pretty green streets, houses like the California bungalows, and such splendid car service, that Sydney is far outshadowed. It is very tropical, too, in Brisbane; the people dress in white, and only get busy toward evening.
His name was Bannerman, and he came aboard here at Brisbane. It was nearly midnight before we cast off and headed down the river. At eight o'clock Bannerman had been deposited with several trunks and suitcases on board by a crowd of noisy young fellows. They had strolled the deck arm-in-arm until we cast off, singing: "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow," and "The King of the Cannibal Islands." And after we had swung away from the wharf, they cried after him to bring them back a few human heads, and they gave him advice as to how to handle the cannibals.
In the cabin the traders had been playing cards all evening, and before turning in I stopped to watch them.
Bannerman was standing behind, telling the traders who he was and where he came from; and from his pretentious talk, he must have been a person of some importance in Brisbane and elsewhere. Now he was going to the islands to rest for awhile at a trading station. He had signed on for a two-year job; as he expressed it, he was tired of civilisation, and of people; he wanted to get to a place where he could rest and take things easy. Of course, he knew that there might p344 be a little trouble with the natives, but that did not bother him.
He went on talking in a loud voice of what he had done and what he could do. The traders paid slight heed to him; poker, as these men played it, took all their attention. Finally, I went to my cabin and turned in. Next morning we were out of sight of land, with a rough head-sea retarding our progress, and sending spray all over the ship. We pitched and rolled as only a South Sea trading steamer can roll. The traders were at their poker game when I went below, but Bannerman was not to be seen, and for several days he failed to show up at the table, and was nearly forgotten until we were half-way to the islands.
The sea was now as smooth as a mill-pond. The after-poop-deck had been covered with an awning. We were gathered on deck one morning after breakfast, the traders telling stories of the islands, when Bannerman came up rather shaky on his legs and joined us. He had nothing to say about himself now. A trader, Swanson by name, had been among the islands for thirty years and had had some bad experiences with the savages. He was relating some trouble he had had with a new bunch of tough recruits, where all the crew on his trading schooner was killed, and he had reached a missionary's house after days without food or water. p345
"On what island did this happen?" enquired Bannerman.
"On Guadalcanar," replied Swanson; and turning, he seemed to see Bannerman for the first time. "Why, I believe that is where you are to be stationed, isn't it? What part do you go to?"
I could see by the way the traders looked at each other that Swanson was about to "string" this green recruit.
"Why, I will be with Collins Brothers, but—"
"What! Collins Brothers?" and turning to another trader, Swanson asked: "Wasn't that where Jack Dupretz was killed?"
"Yes," the other assured him. "Only a few months ago, too. But I hear it was the bush boys did the work, so it's safe enough there now for nearly a year—you know, they never come down, only once a year."
"But they told me this was the most peaceful place in the islands," began Bannerman.
"Well, I reckon it is 'bout as peaceful as any place in the group; but don't you think for a minute that you can go to sleep anywhere up here with both eyes shut. Of course, you are well armed and have plenty of ammunition?"
"I have a revolver and plenty of cartridges," panted Bannerman.
"That's good; but if I were you I would get several p346 guns and a barrel of ammunition; you can never tell what will happen here."
Now that the traders were tired of poker and had found an easy mark, they started in to throw him into a state of panic.
I had scratched my foot that morning, and careful that the yaws did not get started again in the wound, I was washing the cut every half-hour with permanganate of potash and mercury.
While the traders were busy telling their narrow experiences with the cannibals and about the different fellows who had gone to the roasting pot, I had backed out of the group and was anointing my foot with the antiseptic wash. It was necessary for me to roll up my trousers, exposing the red scars of my yaws. This attracted Bannerman's attention.
"What's the matter with your legs?" he asked.
"Nothing now," I answered. "Have just recovered from a slight dose of yaws."
"What's yaws?"
"You'll know soon enough," a trader spoke up. "Wait a few weeks from now. Everybody down here gets yaws—won't be healthy if you don't. You see, it's just a slight form of leprosy."
"But a man can be careful and not catch it, can't he?" quavered the now thoroughly discomfited Bannerman.
"No use; it catches the new fellows who have not p347 been 'climatised;' after you have a good dose of it once, you'll be all right."
"But I was told it was such a healthy climate."
The men laughed this remonstrance down.
"Sure it's a healthy climate, and you'll enjoy it as soon as you get over your first attack of yaws or fever. Of course, the fever may hold off the yaws for awhile—depends on which comes first."
This was about the last straw to Bannerman. He drew off to himself to think over his troubles to come.
The traders let him alone for the rest of the day; but they were preparing new tales to tell him. They had intended to help things along that night at dinner, but Bannerman kept to his bunk, although the sea was as smooth as it ever gets, and it was not until lunch next day that they got a chance to make his life more miserable. This was his first appearance at the table.
"That's right; come and fill up on white man's grub while you've got the chance, for two years is a long time to live on native kai-kai and tinned foods."
"Well, I can stand it, if you fellows can," answered Bannerman bravely.
"Right you are! Now that's the way I like to hear a man talk. I tell you, men, he will be able to handle the black boys, all right. Don't ever let them see you are afraid of them," he cautioned the other, "or they will sure get you."
Every trader present had a tale of horror to tell. By the time the meal was over, Bannerman was in a p348 state of collapse. The captain sat at the head of the table and said nothing during the meal. After we had finished eating, I went on the bridge with him, and we got to talking over this new trader.
"He's the easiest mark I ever saw," exclaimed the captain. "The men generally have a good time with the new traders each trip, but this fellow seems to take it more seriously than any of the others. If he don't get wise before we reach Tulagi, I'll have to set him right—wouldn't be the square thing to send him ashore in the state he's in."
We got in Tulagi just after dark, and the dozen schooners that always come after their mail and as much liquor as they can hold, were anchored in the bay. Immediately after our anchor was dropped, their passengers swarmed aboard, all heading for the bar. I knew some of them, and I told all of them of the way we had frightened Bannerman, and they determined to help the thing along. So one captain asked three of us and Bannerman to go over to his schooner. As we got alongside, thirty natives just recruited from Malaita gave a yell, and the captain told us to get our guns ready. Poor Bannerman said he had no gun. Then the captain asked him if he had come to the Solomons to commit suicide. "Why, no man ever has one hand off his gun here!" the captain declared. At this, Bannerman wanted to go back to the steamer, but the captain said he thought the blacks were in a good humour now. The blacks were a raw, p349 savage lot, stark naked, and adorned, as they thought, most becomingly, with big plugs in their ears, and nose-rings, shell anklets and armlets. But it was their bleached woolly hair that made them look most terrible.
We told Bannerman stories, and the captain, innocently as could be, mentioned a big massacre up near Collins Brothers' plantation, where Bannerman was to work. Bannerman told him this identical place was to be his future home; whereupon the captain elaborated a fiction as to three white men who had lost their heads at Collins' place a few weeks before. (As a matter of fact, Collins' plantation is really one of the most peaceful spots in the Solomons.) Bannerman then and there declared that he would go back to Brisbane on the same steamer that had brought him. But by next morning, he informed us that he had decided to try a few months of it. I think the captain of the Moresby had seen the joke was too far advanced, and had told him that we were "stringing" him.
Governor Woodford, whose station is at Tulagi, had just bought a steamer in order to keep in touch with the other islands, and the traders were having great fun about it. It was just about the size of the Snark, and looked like a tug-boat. It was painted slate colour, the same as the British warships, and had several small guns mounted on deck. All the discipline of a warship was maintained. A native had p350 been trained to blow a bugle; at eight in the morning the flag went up, and at sunset it came down, while the black bugler played his best, and all the schooners followed example in the raising and lowering of flags. At a civilised place, this would seem all right, but at Tulagi it was comical. The traders talked proudly of the "Solomon Island fleet" and were even facetiously arranging for it to follow the American fleet's example and make a trip around the world.
The next morning after our arrival, this little steamer came in from Malaita, where it had been enforcing the law. A white missionary at Ulava had had trouble with the natives, and they had threatened to kill him; so he cleared out in a whale-boat to the governor's, who sent the steamer there. As they steamed up the lagoon they were fired on by the natives, who had old Snyder rifles. When they landed fifty police natives, they were attacked with spears and arrows, several being killed. Then the steamer sent several shells into the village, and killed seven natives. Poor Bannerman's heart throbbed on hearing this—for the captain of the Moresby could not say that this was a joke. He left the next morning for his plantation, accompanied by six natives, and I never heard of him again. Anyway, I'll bet that he wished more than once on that trip that he were back in Brisbane.
We found the Snark in good condition at Aola. We put fuel and water aboard, stored provisions, and p351 unfurled the sail; and then we set out on the backward trip to Sydney.
On January 27 we set out. If the weather were favourable, we ought to get into Sydney in about twenty days. That we did not do so was owing to the captain's overcarefulness. We quickly discovered that Captain Reed was a very timid skipper. But let the words I wrote at the time tell the story.