Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate

by C. A. W. Monckton

When I reached New Zealand I employed my spare time for some months in studying navigation and surgery, whilst I built up my health in preparation for a fresh venture to New Guinea. Here I met again my old friend, Richard Burton. Burton was some years older than myself and, up to that time, had lived a mixed sort of life: educated at Eton, he had then harried his parents into sending him to sea, and had made one voyage to Australia and back in a sailing ship; disgusted with that, he had passed into Sandhurst; not finding that to his liking, he was removed by his parents and sent to the College of Agriculture at Cheltenham, after which he had come to New Zealand and started sheep farming. A crack shot, a fine boxer and fencer, afraid of nothing that either walked, flew or swam, and crammed with a vast lore of out-of-the-way knowledge, I was more than pleased when he volunteered to accompany me back to New Guinea. Burton gave me news of Sylvester who had gone with me on my first trip, and of whom I had heard nothing since he left me at Woodlark Island. After leaving there he had suffered severely from protracted bouts of malaria, and had gone home to England, where, whilst paying a visit to Longner Hall, Burton’s home in Shropshire, he had become engaged to marry the latter’s sister, and meditated, after the marriage, returning to New Zealand to take up sheep farming.

The scheme Burton and I agreed upon was to go to Sydney and there purchase a small sailing vessel, ship as a crew a few Kanakas—if we could get them—load the vessel with mining gear, and go and work the reef, or rather porphery leader, which had been buried by Brady and myself in Woodlark Island. If that project failed—well, we should have a vessel under us, and British, Dutch or German New Guinea, the Solomon, Aru or Admiralty Islands, or, for that matter, the whole of the Malay Archipelago, to seek our fortunes in; neither of us cared very much what we did or whither we went, provided there was something worth having at the end. We expected to find Brady somewhere in the islands and take him on with us.

R. F. L. BURTON, ESQ., AND HIS MOTUAN BOYS

When we were on the eve of leaving New Zealand for Sydney, a man we both knew, named Alfred Cox, asked to be allowed to join us; he had been a middy in the Royal Navy, but had been obliged to leave owing to a steadily increasing deafness, and since then had been farming in New Zealand. We were not at all keen on having him, as he was not a strong man, and he somehow or other contrived to smash one of his bones or otherwise damage himself at unpleasantly frequent intervals. He, however, begged hard, and at last we consented to his throwing in his lot with us.

Arriving in Sydney from New Zealand we inserted the following advertisement in the morning papers—not knowing the deluge it would bring down upon us: “Wanted to buy a schooner, cutter or ketch, between fifteen and thirty tons burden. Apply ‘B. M.,’ Mêtropole Hotel.” On the afternoon of the day of publication of the papers, Burton and I were returning from a shopping expedition, during which we had been purchasing arms, ammunition, charts, instruments, chemicals, tools, etc., when we found the hall porter at the hotel endeavouring to stall off a mixed crowd of people all clamouring to see “B. M.” Hastily we interfered; and, taking them one by one, we arranged interviews with them at our gunsmith’s shop. Broken-down tugs, worn-out coastal steamers, fishing boats, timber scows, vessels building, vessels to be built, all sorts and conditions were offered to us at exorbitant prices; some of the owners and agents we sent off at once, the vessels of others we put on a list for private inspection, and in nine cases out of ten found the description widely different from the reality.

Cox got bored with it all, for he thought we should never get a vessel at the rate we were going on; and he suggested that he should go off and call upon Captain Anson of H.M.S. Orlando, a friend of his, and borrow a carpenter or bo’sun’s mate to assist us in our choice. To this course of action we agreed and, having carried it out, Cox returned to tell us that Captain Anson’s opinion was, that a man-of-war’s man would be of no use to us, but that a man who owned a sail-making and ship-rigging business would be the very man for our purpose. The same man was once employed to bring a yacht from England to Australia; by some misadventure or other he and his crew had run short of provisions, and had then eaten the cabin boy. How the master and crew escaped at their trial I don’t know, probably upon some plea of self-preservation, but the fact was established that the cannibalism had taken place. Many years after we had met him, he fell the first victim in Australia to bubonic plague. Upon our presenting Captain Anson’s card, he at once said he only knew of three vessels likely to suit us, and all were yachts; we found one was too large and expensive, another was too small, whilst the third was a racing cutter of sixteen tons, named the Guinevere, built in England of oak, copper fastened, and yawl rigged for cruising purposes. This vessel was now outclassed for racing, and had fallen into the hands of a money-lender named London, by whom she was used for card parties and pleasant little trips in the harbour. We were assured that the Guinevere was as sound and staunch as on the day she was built, and we accordingly bought her.

We hauled the Guinevere up on to a slip for a general overhaul and refitting, and I took the opportunity of having her fitted with a powerful rotary pump, in addition to her own, my New Guinea experience having taught me the advantage of plenty of pumps. To this pump we owed our lives a great deal sooner than I expected. We left the slip, with every foot of our little vessel chock full of stores, tools, etc., and ran down to Watson’s Bay at the mouth of Sydney harbour. There we joined a small fleet of sailing vessels all waiting for the lowering of a storm signal, then flying at the flagstaff. Among these vessels was a yawl named the Spray, owned and manned by a “Captain” Slocum—a Yankee—by whom she had been entirely built in America, and who was now engaged in the endeavour to sail her single-handed round the world. We had foregathered with Slocum, who told us he had just been visited by the master of the London Missionary Society’s steamer, the John Williams, who, after having inspected his navigating instruments, amongst which was his chronometer, consisting of what he called a “one dollar watch,” had remarked that he appeared to put a lot of trust in Providence. He then invited Slocum to lunch on board the John Williams, when with pride he exhibited that ship’s numerous and splendid instruments and expensive chronometers; Slocum gazed in admiration, and then drawled, “Waal, Captain, I calculate you sky pilots don’t put much faith in Providence!”

We had failed to find any Kanakas for a crew in Sydney, and we dared not attempt to ship white men, as the authorities asked many embarrassing questions as to certificates, objects of voyage, etc.; fortunately the liberty of a yacht still clung to the Guinevere, and they did not apparently bother very much about the three owners. While we were lying in Watson’s Bay, Burton received a cable telling him that his elder brother had broken his neck in the hunting field, and asking him to return home at once. He decided, however, not to leave me in the lurch, but to come on as far as Cooktown in North Queensland, where I could ship a black crew. We were still anchored there, when we were boarded by an official from a launch belonging to the Marine Board, by whom we were harried exceedingly, but whom we placated to a certain extent by means of mixed drinks; he, however, refused to allow us to quit our anchorage without life-buoys, which we did not possess. Our money by this time was getting extremely short, so, accordingly, Burton and I interviewed our shipwright, who sold us some dummies good enough to pass the Marine Inspector. Then, storm signals or no storm signals, for fear of further interference, we decided to go to sea, where Marine Boards and shipping authorities worried not and we could go our way in peace. Apparently some of the other sailing vessels, ships of large tonnage, had become sick of waiting for the promised storm that never came, for about half a dozen of us left the harbour in rotation.

Off Newcastle that night, however, a true “Southerly Buster” hit us and, not knowing the harbour or the coast, we stood out to sea close-hauled. We had the devil of a time: first we lost our dingey, then when, as I calculated, we were about sixty miles off the coast, our jib and staysail went in rapid succession; I was steering, lashed by my legs to cleats to prevent being washed overboard, and every time the cabin scuttle was opened a huge sea went below. It was impossible for either Burton or Cox to venture on deck, for, before they could possibly secure themselves, they were bound inevitably to go overboard, the Guinevere—like all racing vessels—having only a few inches of rail and no bulwarks; in any case, they could do no good on deck. Upon the staysail going, Burton managed, at the imminent risk of his life, to crawl on deck for a few seconds to slack the main sheet, and so let me get the vessel before the wind; hardly had he done so than a huge sea swept right over us, and fortunately, instead of taking him overboard, washed him down the scuttle. Half an hour later he poked up his head and yelled, “The cabin is half full of water which is rising fast; if we don’t pump we shall sink.” Luckily the handle of the new pump was within reach of the scuttle, and Burton, wedging himself firmly in the opening, seized the brake, and for some hours just kept pace with the inflowing water; then the pump choked, and the water steadily rose in the cabin. We did not bother very much about this, for the mainsail was tearing from its ropes, and we knew that when that went, it was only a matter of a few minutes before we broached-to and were smashed into fragments by the seas.