down the throats of some of the people, and then tore them up again. I caught the natives responsible for the cutting open of the man, really by a great streak of luck. The relations of the murdered man had complained to me about the affair; but when I came with the police, the whole of the people had run away from their villages to some bush refuge. We searched and we hunted, but no sign of them could we find; until at last we found a man crippled by elephantiasis, struggling along a track. When we caught him, he was without food and in a great fright, thinking that we should kill him; I questioned him as to the whereabouts of his people, but could get no satisfaction. Then, telling the police to leave him a supply of cooked food, I gave him a stick of trade tobacco and a baubau or native pipe, and marched on; a few minutes after we left him, we heard yells, and sending back I found that he was willing to guide us to the refuge of his people. “They left me,” he said, “to be killed or to starve; you have given me food and tobacco, and if your men will carry me, I’ll show you the hiding place.” Promptly he was picked up and carried; and in two hours, we were marching for the coast with the murderers on a chain.
CHAPTER XVIII
Since my first arrival at Cape Nelson, three months had gone by, during which period the Kaili Kaili and my men had become sworn friends and allies. The Station was nearly finished, and we began to look anxiously for the return of the Merrie England; more especially so, as our stores were running very low and a drought was preventing our purchasing very much in the way of provisions from the natives. The drought brought another complication: for the missionary at Cape Vogel sent me a letter, stating that the women of the villages were killing their infants. The practice of abortion and infanticide is always common among the weaker non-warlike or non-cannibal tribes of New Guinea, though unknown among the head hunters or cannibals. I accordingly went hurriedly to Cape Vogel by boat, and threatened and bullied the people on the subject of infanticide, and sent five women, who had murdered their babies, to gaol; later, I had these women transferred to Port Moresby to serve their time, as there was better accommodation for female prisoners at Headquarters than at Cape Nelson. Some months afterwards, I received an indignant letter from the gaoler, asking whether I thought the Port Moresby gaol was a lying-in hospital, as all the imprisoned ladies had either added to the population or were about to do so.
At Mukawa, I found that, a day or so before my arrival, a large fleet of Maisina canoes had put in an appearance, bullying and blackmailing the inhabitants; but upon hearing that I was hourly expected with the police, they had departed to raid elsewhere. Running up the coast before a fair wind, I sighted the fleet of canoes leaving a small island, but as they ran inshore I did not bother to follow them; later, I found that an old chief, named Bogege, had been down the coast with a party of raiders, generally raising sheol. At the island, where I had sighted the canoes, he had landed and discovered a bêche-de-mer trader’s house and Station, occupied by a man, his native wife, and a dozen Suau natives. The owner was away fishing; but Bogege’s men had outraged the women, beaten the boys, stolen everything they could lay their hands upon, and would probably have wound up their performances with murder, but for my boat heaving in sight. I sent Bogege a polite message to the effect, that when I had time to attend to the Maisina, they would have something to remember; to which he replied, “My people have taken the feathers off their spears.” A civil Papuan declaration of war. The fight between Bogege and myself, however, came sooner than he expected, though, for the present, being delayed by pressure of more urgent work.
Briefly, the following required my immediate attention. Firstly, a tribe named the Mokoru, lying to the north of Cape Nelson, captured and ate a number of runaway Mambare carriers: they calmly told me that they would do the same to the police, if I interfered with them, but added, that I myself was so repulsively coloured that they would not dream of eating me, but would feed me to the pigs instead! “Pigs having stronger stomachs than men!” Next, the Arifamu, to the south, ate some carriers and snapped up one of my constabulary; he, however, escaped from them and was rescued by us. Then the Winiapi tribe, also in the south, plundered a trader’s vessel and defied me. “The police are but women, and go clothed like women,” was their reply to my demand that they surrender the offenders.
I fell upon the Mokoru first, and with good result. One dark night, Seradi piloted the whaler up a creek leading to the house of the principal chief, and we collared him and his son at dawn. The Mokoru, who lived in hamlets scattered over the grassy ridges, attempted to attack and ambush my force; but in half an hour they had learnt so much about the effect of rifle fire in the open as to compel them to decide that eating carriers did not pay, and also, that they had better join the Kaili Kaili by throwing in their lot with the Government. The Mokoru chief we caught was named Paitoto; he later turned out to be an excellent man, and I made him Government chief and village constable for his tribe. He told me one tale, however, that rather sickened me. “You remember,” said Paitoto, “the morning you caught me, you were very bad and sick from fever?” “Yes,” I replied. “Poruta made you some soup in one of my small pots, from a pigeon he shot,” he went on, “and you complained about the pot being greasy and made him scrub it very clean.” “Well, what of it?” I asked. “That was the pot in which my wife had made a stew of carriers’ hands.”
Paitoto only did about a fortnight’s gaol, and was then released to take up his duties as v.c. Afterwards, he did a very plucky thing, when securing a sorcerer whom I badly wanted: having made the arrest, he locked one ring of the handcuffs on to the sorcerer and the other on to his own wrist; and for fear that the sorcerer, on the journey, might over-awe him, he threw the key of the handcuffs over a precipice. Unfortunately, he then told the sorcerer such dreadful tales of what I should do to him, that the man hurled himself over a small cliff, carrying Paitoto with him; with the result, that Paitoto’s handcuffed arm was badly smashed, and I had an awful job repairing it.
