CHAPTER IX
How we Go
Some years ago the Editor of News from Afar had a series of articles describing “How We Go” in different lands. Only one of the series dealt with Papua, and that mainly with a journey in a small cutter. In Delena district we have no cutter, so every journey must be made either in the whale boat, or a canoe, or by tramping. After the comfort of fast trains and trams in England, the labour of a short journey in Papua would be laughable if it were not so wearisome. To talk of a journey when the distance to be covered is only some 50 or 60 miles, seems absurd till you have had experience of it, and then you will measure the distance not by miles, but by hours or days.
These journeys are necessary because each missionary, in addition to the head station at which he lives, has charge of villages scattered over a wide area, where the South Sea and Papuan teachers who help him are doing their work.
If the journey is to be performed in comfort (and there is no need to seek discomfort, plenty will come in the ordinary way) careful thought must be given to the preparation. Much more has to be done than just pack a portmanteau, for everything that will be needed till the return must be remembered and packed, or done without, for nothing can be got on the way. Food is the first consideration, and if we are to be away three weeks, then it is not safe to start with provision for less than a month. A time-table may be made out, but that does not say that it is going to be kept. A tide may be lost, or a strong wind may blow, and then there is nothing for it but to “dohore,” or more often the real trouble of Papuan travel causes delay. Carriers cannot be got to take the baggage on to the next village. How many weeks are lost to travellers in Papua in the course of a year, from this cause alone, it would be difficult to estimate. The total would surprise one, and unfortunately no amount of arrangement will overcome the difficulty. Remembering this it will be well to be liberal in the estimate of the number of meals that will be required before we return to the starting-point.
Next comes the provision for paying the carriers and buying native food for them. A missionary from China once told me of the trouble caused by the quantity of Chinese cash that had to be carried on a journey. A big purse indeed would be necessary, but no purse would be any good in Papua. A good sized box, heavy enough to require two men to carry it, takes its place. Instead of £ s. d. it contains an assortment of barter goods. The real currency is black tobacco, made up in small sticks going 26 to the pound. For ordinary work three of these constitute a day’s pay, in the Delena district but do not imagine that the man who receives the pay smokes it all. As often as not when he has been paid he says, “Now give me a smoke.” His unbroken sticks of tobacco are like so many unchanged shillings. They are safe, and can be passed on in payment for food, but if once broken they are like the coppers—they soon vanish. One after another his friends will borrow, or beg—it amounts to the same thing in this case—till there is nothing of the original stick left.
Matches, print, knives, hooks, lines, mirrors, beads, hatchets—all find a place in the trade box. I have tried soap, but it does not “take.” Some of the Papuans will receive it as a present, but not as payment for work done.
Having provided for the inner man, and for paying our way, we next think of the saucepan, the “billy,” the frying-pan, lamps, bucket, hatchet, kerosene for the lamps, hammocks and tent if we are going to villages where we have no teacher, table requisites, and are careful to see that the mosquito nets are in the bag. Once only did I forget to do this, and the lesson I learnt has never been forgotten. Beds one can do without, but not mosquito nets. Rice for the boys must not be overlooked, for it is not always possible to buy native food.