A SEA-COAST SCENE IN NEW GUINEA.
Some of the houses of Elevada, one of the pottery towns, may be seen by the sea.
At Issu we stayed for the night, and did our best to sleep, although the sand-flies were a great torment. From Issu we went on to Manu-Manu, a stretch of eighteen miles, and as we went we saw many sharks, who followed us close inshore and kept pace with us for a considerable distance, hoping in vain that we would be unwise enough to bathe. Some natives, who had followed us from Giabada, tried to kill them by throwing sticks.
Manu-Manu was our last halt before taking a canoe for Port Moresby. At the former place we found some men to assist us, and after spending the night there, and the best part of the following day in preparation, we embarked. At the mouth of the Manu-Manu River the crocodiles swarmed in the brackish water. This is the point where there occurred the fight between the natives and the crocodiles which I described in one of my earlier chapters. The canoe voyage that we made at this time was one that was only possible in fine weather, for there were many nasty headlands to round. The bays were very deep, and at the middle of the crossing from point to point we would often be ten miles off the land. Often, too, there were treacherous reefs to avoid, but fortunately we had moonlight after 2 A.M.; and so, sometimes sailing and sometimes paddling, we passed the villages of Boira and Borepada and reached Port Moresby at five on the evening of the day after we had left Manu-Manu. We arrived at the Government station just about the same time as the ketch which was bearing the bulk of our baggage.
We entered Port Moresby by the western entrance, which is not deep enough for large ships, and can only be made by canoes. At Port Moresby we had intended to put up as formerly at Sam’s house, but we found news of deep affliction awaiting our faithful head-man. His wife Heli was in terrible distress, for she had lost two children while her husband was with us in the interior. Both were boys, one of seventeen known as George, and the other a bright little fellow of ten called Foralis, who had been a great favourite of ours on our former visit, and who used to make himself very useful to us.
Poor George’s death was a merciful release, for although he was so well on in his teens, he was a mere dwarf, and had been ill since his birth—a sufferer from the so-called New Guinea disease, that incurable and mysterious disorder which eats away the legs. It is believed to be a form of leprosy. He was a fleshless, melancholy little being, who lay in bed all day, hardly ever moving. He had, however, all his senses, and it was pathetic to see him pursuing his only amusement, playing with the petals of flowers and with different coloured papers, of which he sometimes made strings. Sam must have missed Foralis very keenly, for the youngster was at a most attractive age, and was beginning to be very useful in various ways. He had become quite a bold little horseman, and would often ride on errands for his father.
We spent five days at Port Moresby in the usual routine of packing for the homeward voyage, the first stage of which we performed on the small steamer Parua, which took us to Cooktown, where we were interested to note the relics of former mining activity, for the place enjoyed a brief spell of prosperity, during which pretentious banks and public buildings sprang up, and still stand there as if in mockery of its absolute deadness. The time was when they took fifty tons of gold from the Palmer River, but those days had long gone by, although there is certainly plenty of mineral wealth in the hinterland that is entirely unworked, and excellent for tin miners especially. No effort has been made to work this, and it is difficult to get money for even a gold mine at the back of Cooktown, so much British capital has been lost there in wild-cat schemes. A once busy railway still runs fitfully to the Palmer River.
We stayed three weeks at Cooktown, and during the second week we witnessed a thunderstorm that transcended in violence the worst I had ever seen in South America, and that is saying a good deal. After an intensely oppressive morning, a black cloud came up from the westward, and the storm burst with startling suddenness. In less than half-an-hour every street was a veritable river, and the lightning, continuous and seemingly ubiquitous, was accompanied by cracking and rending thunder that could only be described as appalling. Fortunately, no one was killed, and the only damage was to the roof of Burns’s store, which was struck by lightning.
Save for the thunderstorm, our stay at Cooktown was utterly uneventful, and at the end of the third week we went down to Sydney and came home by the White Star line.