21st.—Our spirit friend is quite out as yet, for here we are nursing Patience, and trying to make her a dear friend. We are promised a start to-morrow. In the evening, the hunters came in with large supplies of wallaby. They report innumerable horses and foreigners as having gone to Kupele; we suppose it to be Goldie’s party. From to-day’s shooting, the old man got a green parrot, and devoured it raw. Oriope dressed himself in his fighting gear, and went through a few antics; he looked a perfect fiend. He is very proud of a stone club he possesses with a piece broken off; he says it was broken in felling a tremendous fellow in a neighbouring village. He killed him. “What, stand before me!”
22nd.—I was eating a banana this morning, when I was told not to throw the skin away, but hand it to them, which I did, when it was passed round and kissed by all with short ejaculations. I asked what it meant, and was told it was their manner of thanking the spirits for ripe bananas. We started at eight a.m. with eight carriers and our old friend, and twenty inland natives returning home with wallaby; one poor woman had two large kits on her back, and an infant in another, hanging in front of her. We were seven hours on the tramp, along a good path, on
which horses could get along well. The most difficult ascent was shortly after we left Uakinumu; but the path was good. The last hour of travelling was in a thunderstorm, with a regular tropical pour of rain. When we neared the village Marivaeanumu, the men came rushing out with their spears and shields, thinking it was an attacking party; but on seeing Maka, who was just behind the first native, and I following up, they shouted out, Nao, nao! (foreigners), and ran back with their spears. The village is small, and the houses very dilapidated; it is 1800 feet above sea-level. Maka was buying taro with salt, and having finished, some natives noticed damp salt adhering to his hand; they seized the hand, and in turn licked it until quite clean. Grains of salt falling were sought for and picked up. The shields here are the same as at Hood Bay, beautifully made. They are going to fight soon with another district, and are making great preparations in spears, clubs, and shields.
23rd.—Our spiritist gave us a very short and indistinct séance last night. A man speared the other day in a wallaby hunt, near the Laroki, he told us, was dead. He seemed to be raving a great deal, and wound up the first part with, Nao kuku daure (Foreign tobacco is bad). Continuing to rave and disturb sleep, I told Oriope that, if that spirit did not at once go back where it came from, I should certainly have to make it; he reported what I said, and the spirit thought it advisable to leave. We started this morning
after a good breakfast, and had good travelling across a fine level country E.S.E. for about four hours, crossing several times the head of the Laroki: it is a magnificent country for horses. In somewhat thick scrub, a youth met the first of our party, and was fraternizing very feelingly with them: I appeared, and he took to his heels, and no calling of friends or foreigners could bring him back. We came suddenly upon a woman and two children, and, poor things! they went into a terrible state; nothing would comfort them; beads, tobacco, and salt lost their charm on them. The family pig was with them; it danced, grunted, advanced, retired, and finally made at me. In the morning I took a piece of plaster from my heel, and threw it into the fireplace; instant search was made for it by about a dozen natives; it was found, and handed back to me, they making signs that I should throw it somewhere else. Yesterday morning I unthinkingly put the loose hair from my comb into the fire, and great was the outcry.
We are now in Nameanumu, in the Sogeri district, and in a fine house twelve feet from the ground. We are about 1530 feet above sea-level. Teachers here need have no difficulty about food; there is a great abundance all round of taro, banana, sugar-cane, and bread-fruit. A teacher with some “go” in him, and a good earnest wife to help him, would do well here. I am inclined to think an easier way here will be from Moumiri; but we have to travel with natives
where they can take us with safety to themselves. Sitting round the fire a little while ago, our spirit friend having just left us, an old woman shouted out to Oriope to look out, as the spirit was about to go through the thatch near to where he was sitting. Instant search was made, but nothing found. She then called out from her verandah that it had gone, as Rua and Maka were doing something with their guns. I may say the old woman was with us last night, and heard my threat. We have had the description here of some other animal that is in the Kupele and Moroka districts. It is a dangerous one to go near, and several have lost their lives from it.
24th.—Very heavy rain. A number of people have come in from the villages to have a look at us, so I have to go through the process of baring arms and chest. This forenoon they described an animal to us that I think must be the tiger—a long animal, with a long tail and large paws, treads lightly when seeing its prey, and then bounds upon it, tearing the bowels out first. They say they are as long as the house—twelve feet. We are not prepared to tackle such, customers. Our host is a quiet man, with a very pleasing expression of countenance. I like the people much, and pray God the day is near when they shall have the Gospel preached unto them, and receive it, and know it to be the power of God unto salvation. Evil spirits reign over them, and the utterance of every rascally spiritist is thoroughly believed.
They seem very much attached to their children, and in their own peculiar way, I dare say, love their wives. Husband and wife meeting after a separation is strange. Some who returned with us had been away for a fortnight; their wives looked pleased when they saw them, so did the husbands; not a word was spoken, only a look; clubs and spears were put down, and the husbands went to where other men were sitting, the wives to light fires and cook food; when cooked, the wife took it to the husband, who ate a little, gave away some, and then went and sat by his wife. I have noticed that the wives are particularly happy when preparing this return food. Oriope’s wife, who accompanied us, is ill with a cold; I wished her to take a dose of chlorodyne, but she cried and hesitated much; the old man then took the cup and told her to look; he drank some of it, said it was not bad, and then pressed her to drink it off, which she did.
25th.—We left this morning at eight, and arrived at Orofedabe, in the Favele district, at one p.m. The walking was good and steady, the first few miles along the valley beneath a mountain in the Sogeri district, which we called Mount Nisbet, and the range near to Eikiri. We crossed the Laroki several times, and sat near its head; then ascended an easy ridge of the Owen Stanley Range. We travelled for about two hours along this ridge, then descended, crossing two streams, which we suppose to be the head streams