VILLAGE NEAR PORT MORESBY
When the Merrie England sailed, I accordingly went with her, and the trip proved to be a truly dreadful one. We had on board one mid-wife and two domestic servants, who had been in the service of the wives of some of the Government officers in Port Moresby; as each of these women took up a cabin, and we were—with the exception of the Governor—carrying our full complement of people, the accommodation was limited. I occupied a settee in the cabin of Commander Curtis; a settee that, when we struck really bad weather in the Gulf of Papua, I abandoned for the security of the floor. No ship that I have ever known could roll like the Merrie England: one night, whilst we were at dinner, she rolled so prodigiously as to tear the saloon tables from their fastenings, and rolled tables, men, table gear, and food backwards and forwards across the cabin, nearly crushing the lives out of Judge Winter and myself, who happened to be on the lee side when the first roll came. The sea-sick white women heard the din, and thought the ship was sinking; accordingly, they rose from their bunks, attired merely in their night things, and rushed into the saloon, where of course they were promptly swept off their legs into the chaos of swearing men and smashing crockery. That night was the sole occasion upon which Judge Winter was known to use bad language; but I think even a judge is justified in making remarks, when he finds the edge of a heavy table, crowned by a dozen men, resting on his liver. At last we disentangled ourselves, dragged out the shrieking women, and shoved them back into their cabins. “Why the blank blank don’t you go and attend to those women?” yelled the skipper at one of the stewards, who was grovelling about amongst the mixture on the floor. “I’m looking for my teeth, sir,” he said. The unfortunate man had lost his false teeth in the excitement.
At Daru we found De Lange, Assistant R.M., carrying on Bingham Hely’s duties; Hely, R.M., at the time being on leave, and occupied in dying in a Thursday Island hospital. De Lange was afterwards drowned in the mouth of the Fly River, his whaleboat having capsized in a bad tide rip some four or five miles from land: his police started to swim for the shore, carrying him with them; but finding that—hampered by him—the police could not make headway against the tide and current, and that probably all would be drowned, he ordered them to release him, and, bidding them “Good-bye,” put his hands above his head and went down like a gallant man. Cruel, certainly, was the toll New Guinea took of her first officers.
Returning from Thursday Island, the Merrie England landed me again at Hall Sound, where, after having sent in to the Station for my police, I returned to my duties. On the first parade after I got back to the Station, I addressed my men as follows: “That you are a lot of rogues and villains, I am convinced, and also that you have got fat from idleness during my absence; but what steel instruments do you want most?” “Razors,” said some; “scissors,” said others. “Ah, you scoundrels, I can read your hearts even in Thursday Island.” Then solemnly I presented each man with a razor and a pair of scissors. “If ever you are sick again and the prisoners sing,” said Keke, “we will pull their tongues out.”
CHAPTER XIV
At this first parade, after my return to Mekeo, when I was inspecting the men I found one of them all gashed about the face and body. “What have you been up to?” I asked; “more pine-apples?” He grinned sheepishly, and explained that whilst I was away his grandfather had died, and so he had cut himself all over with broken glass as a sign of mourning. “The Queen is your grandfather and grandmother and all the rest of your relations,” I told him, “and you belong to her. The next man I catch cutting himself about as a sign of mourning will get something to mourn for.” Exasperating people they were, one never knew what they would do next; Kipling’s definition of a native as, “half devil and half child,” is a very true one.
The signs of mourning were almost as varied as the tribes themselves, and it may be of interest if I mention one or two of the other methods in vogue. The Goodenough Islanders had a horrid habit of cutting off their finger joints with bits of obsidian, i.e. volcanic glass: until, after a sickly season, the hands of some of the men were merely bleeding stumps. The Suaus cut down the cocoanut trees belonging to the deceased, until Sir William MacGregor passed a Regulation forbidding it; and the Kaili Kaili used to hurl themselves face forward into the sea, and inhale salt water until they nearly burst their lungs.
One of the troubles of the Mekeo Government Officer was a periodic friction between the members of the Sacred Heart and London Missions, concerning the limitations of their respective districts. Sir William MacGregor had, with his usual perspicacity, foreseen the likelihood of difficulties and sectarian disturbances, should rival denominations come into contact in the same village or district, and had made a Regulation allotting each Mission a special sphere of influence. The London Mission being first on the field, and scattering its men over a very wide stretch of coast line, received the lion’s share; its territory extended from East Cape in the extreme east, to the Dutch boundary in the extreme west. The Sacred Heart Mission had merely Yule Island, containing a very small population of natives, at most a couple of hundred; one tiny village on the coast, and the actual district of Mekeo; it did not, however, include Maiva, which was in the London area. The Sacred Heart, having occupied all its available territory, wished to extend its borders, and cast envious eyes upon the large unoccupied portions belonging to the London Mission: then, having sent in its priests, it began work in those parts. Bramell, acting under orders from Port Moresby, promptly pulled down their houses and ordered them back.