Taking our Dudura man with us and walking down the Dudura stream, we soon emerged upon the banks of the Musa, which at this point was a headlong tearing torrent, quite uncrossable; gradually, as we descended the banks of the river, the valley widened and the beach became better. In the afternoon, sounds of chopping were heard, and a native was discovered busily engaged in felling a tree. “I want that man alive and uninjured,” I said to the police. “He has got an axe and looks a sturdy fellow,” they replied; “it looks difficult.” Still, the constabulary, when told to do a thing, generally managed to accomplish it, difficult or not. Four of them noiselessly slipped away into the scrub, crept upon four sides and within a few yards of the working man, unperceived by him; a private then attracted his attention by yelling suddenly at him from behind; he gave a howl of surprise and alarm, and sprang round to defend himself, with his axe raised ready to strike. Then silently and swiftly as a springing greyhound, a Mambare private rushed in and leapt upon his back, bearing man and axe to the ground with the impetus of his rush; the others sprang and threw themselves upon the pair, and after a minute of a yelling, tangled, scrambling worry, during which he used his teeth with good effect, our quarry was disarmed and handcuffed. He was a fine, powerful, intelligent man, and, after he had been induced to stop yelling and made to understand that he was not going to be killed, he answered questions readily. “Who are you?” we asked. “Gabadi, of the village of Dugari, lower down the Musa,” he replied. The Maisina here said that Dugari was a most iniquitous village, and concerned in all the raiding. It was, however, imperatively necessary that we should get into friendly communication with some of the tribes of the Upper Musa, and if we retained Gabadi as a prisoner, we could not attain that end; we now wished to make the object of our expedition clear beyond any possibility of misconception in the minds of the Doriri. Gabadi was therefore released, returned his axe, and given some tobacco, to ease his mind of any feeling of fright or annoyance at the sudden manner in which we had effected our introduction to him.
We then asked him to go down the river to his village, and tell the people where we were, and that we wished to be friendly; also, that we would buy all the food they chose to bring us. Gabadi said that his wives had been in a camp some little distance away from the place where we had caught him, and that they had fled while we were engaged in making his acquaintance; he would therefore like first to find them, in order to leave them safe in our camp while he went off to Dugari. During his absence we pitched camp. After howling for some time in the forest for his wives, he returned to us in disgust; and, after remarking that the silly women would probably alarm half the river, proceeded to make himself comfortable for the night among the carriers. The intrusion of Gabadi was regarded by the Maisina portion of the carriers in much the same light as a roomful of rats might be expected to view the sudden introduction of a bull terrier into their midst. Continuing our way down the river, we came to a small village on the opposite bank; Gabadi, whose night with us had now given him full confidence, called to the people and told them who we were, and asked them to bring food to us. They soon rafted across a quantity of vegetables and a pig, for all of which they were well paid. Then, at great length, we explained to the people who we were, where we had been, what we had done, and why we did it; and they promised faithfully to repeat it to the Doriri. Upon seeing the prisoners, all of whom they appeared to know, and especially the last man captured at Dudura, who, from the concern they showed at his being in our hands, was certainly a person of considerable importance, they were most eager to ransom him; for which purpose pigs and goods were freely offered. They were told, however, that he would be returned when he had learnt the ways of the Government, but not till then.
We were now informed by Gabadi that a large and very bad sago swamp lay between us and Dove village on the right bank of the river, while a good track led down the left bank through Gewadura. We accordingly made rafts and crossed the river, which proved to be no light matter. I got a scare during this operation, for I foolishly crossed first with only Toku and Gabadi with me, before any of the constabulary had come across, as they were busily engaged in making rafts; when, suddenly, a whole mob of truculent-looking natives appeared, who said they came from Mbese village, and who, it was plain, did not regard us in any too friendly a light. The watchful Barton saw me surrounded by strange natives, and promptly sent my constabulary across, and gladly I welcomed them. A few of the Mbese men subsequently helped in the crossing of the rafts, but mainly they stood sullenly aloof, gazing sympathetically at our chained prisoners and savagely at us, plainly wondering whether an attempt at a rescue was worth while or not, and eventually coming to the conclusion that we looked too strong. They flatly refused to guide us to Gewadura, or point out the track there. “Some day, rude people of the Mbese,” said the Kaili Kaili, “we will meet again, and our master will tell us to teach you manners; you are only bush rats, and the police and we will drive you through the bush like rats!” Gabadi stuck steadily to us, and for a consideration in the shape of a tomahawk, undertook to guide us as far as the Gewadura track, but no further. From this point to the sea coast, the course of the river had been traversed and mapped by Sir William MacGregor, therefore our troubles and difficulties were now very considerably lessened.
At midday we came to a large abandoned village and extensive deserted gardens, which had originally been marked on the map as Gewadura, but the former inhabitants had been slaughtered and driven out by incursions of Doriri, and had built a new, strongly stockaded village lower down the Musa. At about five in the afternoon, during very heavy rain, we were preparing to camp in low-lying country plainly subject to inundation, when Barton, who was gazing disgustedly at our unpromising looking camp site, sent on his corporal to see if there was not a better spot for camping that could be reached before night. The corporal returned and reported a large village in sight round a bend, which the Dove men said must be Gewadura, a village friendly to them; so they at once went on to announce our presence. Back they came, bringing four most friendly natives, who guided us to a splendid camp site alongside the village, where men, women and children brought us huge quantities of food and pigs, and assisted us in clearing the camping ground. The villagers left us as soon as night had fallen, retiring within the gates of their stockade. The next morning, taro and all native vegetables were brought to us in abundance, for which we paid well. Gewadura village was new, large, and very clean, and had in its midst a number of houses built in the very tops of gigantic trees. The people were delighted to hear that at last the Doriri had been called to account for their murderous raids, and had been taught that even the land of the Doriri was not secure from the anger of the Government. Three men volunteered to guide us to Dove, and exclamations of delighted wonder came from the people as the expedition filed through the gates of their stockade, and they saw some of their ancient enemies, the Doriri, led past by the village constables.
We arrived at Dove in the evening, and were received with every sign of pleased welcome natives can show; they ferried us across the river in their canoes. Two of our carriers belonged to the village. The good wives rushed to the cooking pots, while the good men hunted the family pig with a spear, and the village dogs streaked for the bush, some, alas! being too slow and furnishing a portion of many a savoury stew. Some of the manifestation of joy we could well have dispensed with: leeches, scrub-itch, mosquitoes, stinging trees, lawyer vines, rough tracks, all had done their worst to our suffering skins, and covered as we were with sores and abrasions, we submitted, as perforce we must, with but ill grace to being violently embraced, hugged, stroked and handled. The two Dove men acted as showmen, and exhibited the prisoners to all and sundry, who cautiously inspected the disgusted Doriri, much as country children peep at a caged tiger in a menagerie; while the Doriri’s feelings, under the regard, seemed much the same as those of the said tiger.
The next day Barton and I, with the prisoners and two of the constabulary, went down the river in a canoe to Yagisa, the police and carriers proceeding overland to that village. From thence, a native track led behind Mount Victory to Wanigela village in Collingwood Bay, over which the Dove men undertook to guide us; they said it was a good track and would take us to Wanigela in two days. It might be considered a good track by an eel, an alligator, or a Dove Baruga native, but we discovered that, from our point of view, it was one of the most infamous roads in New Guinea. First we marched through sticky bogs, painfully dragging our booted legs, laden with pounds of mud, through a glutinous substance varying in depth from six inches to two feet, and punctuated with sludgy holes, anything from four to six feet deep, which looked exactly the same, and into which we repeatedly fell; the frantic cursing of the just engulfed man being aggravated by the half-concealed smiles of the lucky one who had, on that occasion, escaped. All this under deluges of rain and in an atmosphere of steaming heat, with fresh leeches getting into one’s clothes on every side. We then came into a pandanus swamp, through which we walked up to our waists in water and treading upon roots; every time we slipped upon the greasy things, and grabbed at the nearest tree to recover our balance, we caught hold, with festering hands, of a spiky thorny pandanus stem and got yet a fresh supply of prickles in them; if we missed our hold, we rolled over into the nearest spiky tree and got the thorns into some other portion of our anatomy.
At last we emerged on to rolling hills and the spurs of Mount Victory, passing on the way a village site, the former inhabitants of which had been slaughtered and scattered by the Doriri; on the third day we reached a Collingwood Bay village, named Airamu, two miles from the coast and Wanigela. Airamu village is fortified in a peculiar way: it is circular in shape and is built round half a dozen very tall trees, the tops of which are occupied by houses, stuffed with stones, spears and missiles, for the reception of raiding Doriri; the whole is enclosed within two circular stockades, the outer of which is built almost horizontally. A peculiar feature of the houses is, that each one has its separate dog entrance; this consists of a hollow trough, cut out from a palm, and running from the ground through a hole in the floor, up and down which the dogs run constantly in and out of their owners’ houses.
Our work was now done: the Doriri had been found, punished to a certain extent, and warned what would be the result of further raiding; time alone would show whether the warning was sufficient. The Upper Musa tribes, also concerned in the raiding, had likewise received an object lesson as to their fate, if they did not mend their ways.