CHAPTER VII
GOOD-BYE TO DINAWA
Among the scientific specimens I brought back to Dinawa was a new phallonopsis which I had discovered near Fa-lo-foida as we returned from our camp on the St. Joseph. This orchid is one of the superb treasures that occasionally reward the seeker as he passes through the wilds of New Guinea. It was found growing in the fork of a tree, where it had plenty of shade and a rich damp bed of moss and leaves. The leaves were a very brilliant dark green, and on the spray, which was quite 3 feet long, grew thirty magnificent white flowers of exquisite fragrance. Each specimen must have measured 2½ inches in diameter when the sepals and petals were extended. Its whiteness fulfilled the most rigid canons of the orchid fancier, for in judging orchids there are whites and whites. The value is determined by substance. You may get a white that is very satisfactory, but there is a thick waxiness of blossom that gives to a plant the very highest value, and this delightful specimen was as near the ideal as anything I have ever seen. It had, of course, pseudo-bulbs, and did not live on the tree, which is merely used as a means of support, and the plant draws its nourishment from the humidity of the atmosphere.
Once more we settled down to the routine life of the camp, but it became plainer every day that, as there was no sign of the drought breaking up, there was very little hope of satisfactory work until another year. The skies were still brazen, and vegetation was failing more and more. The sweet potato crop had utterly failed. Those in store had long been consumed, and the natives were absolutely starving round us. It was no use for them to plant another crop of sweet potatoes until the rain should come, and they were wandering sadly all over the forest seeking what sustenance they could. Their strength was failing, and their privations were beginning to tell in terrible emaciation. It was pitiful to see the starving creatures come into camp, most of them mere skin and bone. Their children, of course, felt the pinch hardest, and there were many deaths. To see their condition one could hardly believe that they would ever recover, but they bore it all with a wonderful stoicism. Occasionally they would try to catch a pig in their corrals.
NATIVE WOMEN AT DINAWA.
The background is the roof and side of the author’s house.
The Dinawa people would also come to me for medicine, and would constitute me their physician for small complaints, such as headache, but I had to be very careful in this respect, for I found out that often they wanted medicine when nothing was the matter. This recalls to me an amusing incident of this period connected with my minor Æsculapian dealings. One morning Doboi, Martu, and Ow-bow came in, saying that Doboi’s mother was ill. On being questioned as to her symptoms, they told me that she was aching all over her body, and her head was particularly painful. Beyond these details we could not find out anything, and as the woman was some distance off, and it was not convenient to go that day, we gave them a headache compound and sent them off with it. Later in the afternoon the boys returned and told us that Ow-bow’s mother was dead, but the tidings were not so alarming as at first appeared; for they added that “her head was dead but her stomach was alive,” from which I understood that she was unconscious. The neighbouring Roman Catholic missionary, on hearing this, said that he would go over the following day. These cases were not new to him; in fact, he told us that fainting was quite common. Obviously, the dead head and the live stomach was a simple instance of swooning.
During this time we had permitted our man Gaberio—whom I have already mentioned as being with us at the St. Joseph River—to go off on his own account collecting butterflies and birds. Gaberio was a Papuan whom I had engaged at Port Moresby. He was very intelligent, capable, and quick, and to his other qualities he added a knowledge of pigeon English. I mention him chiefly because the fact of his absence brought home to us with considerable force the value of that extraordinary system of intercommunication prevailing among the Papuans, which may well be called the wireless telegraphy of the wilds. For some time Gaberio was, as one might expect in such a region, entirely beyond our ken, and although we knew he could take care of himself very well, as the days went on, and our departure was approaching, we felt that we should like to have tidings of him.
One morning, while we were writing home, we heard the natives calling from hill to hill. In that pure air their voices carry magnificently for a great distance, and village answers village with perfect ease from ridge to ridge. A little later the natives came in and told us that Gaberio was at a village called Kea-ka-mana, on the northern slope of the hill beyond us. It appeared that he was coming back by the same route as he had gone, and they told us that he expected to reach camp the next day. We thought at the time that he might go from Kea-ka-mana to the Kebea, but the natives said no, so we surmised that he must have a good collection of butterflies and birds, for he had had fine weather—finer, indeed, than Sam, who after all had got together quite a fine number of specimens. This news set us quite briskly to the work of preparation for our departure, for as soon as Gaberio should have returned we determined to make all speed down to Epa. The next day we were on the look-out for Gaberio, but he did not arrive, so we concluded that he had either gone to the Kebea or was remaining at Kea-ka-mana collecting. We filled up the day with active preparations for breaking up the camp, and, of course, our chief care was our collections.
