“Yes, Kone is dead, and we buried him at your house. The house of his one great friend!”
CHAPTER VII
THE BERITANI WAR-CANOES
“TAMATE” was the name by which the Rarotongans called Mr. Chalmers when he first reached the island. The natives of New Guinea called the British men-of-war “Beritani war-canoes.” While Mr. Chalmers was at Port Moresby five of them came to New Guinea, and sailed about in its waters. Up till this time the south-eastern part of the island had always been left in the hands of the natives. If these men had been as able to keep away other people as they were to kill each other, it might have been left to them always. But although they were very clever with their bows and spears, they could do little against men who fought them with guns.
Mr. Chalmers and Mr. Lawes, and those like them, were not the only foreigners who came to New Guinea. Some very cruel men came. They wished to make a great deal of money, and they did not care how much they hurt other people in order to make it.
When they came to the island they bought land as Tamate did, but they did not pay for it as he had done. Sometimes they bought a large piece of ground, and gave the worth of one penny for it. The natives did not know what their land was worth, so they were willing to let it go for almost nothing. The strangers did not always take trouble to find out who really owned the land. They bought it from those who had no right to sell it.
But they did a very much more cruel thing than that. They tempted the natives to go away with them to work and to get many things they wished in payment for the work. The traders made the natives think they meant to bring them back in “three moons.” Some of the men of New Guinea thought it would be nice to come home rich men in so short a time, and went with them. But three months, and six months, and a year passed, and still they did not return. Their friends at last mourned for them as dead, and gave the things that had been theirs to others. Often the natives were so angry, when they found out what had been done, that they killed other white men who did not wish to harm them.
Tamate had been in New Guinea for some years. By his kindness to the natives, he had made it more possible for strangers to trade there. But many sad things were happening. White men were cruel to natives, and natives were cruel to white men. Often both white men and dark killed people who had not hurt them, because they hated the whole race for what single men of it had done.
Every one who knew about it felt that this must not go on, and England sent her men-of-war to take Southern New Guinea under her care. She did not take it for her own. She only said that she would try to keep people from doing very wicked things there, and that she would punish those who were unjust and cruel to others, whether they were natives of New Guinea or not.
But the officers on board the men-of-war did not know the languages of New Guinea. They could not tell the natives why they were there nor what they wished to do. They asked Mr. Chalmers and Mr. Lawes to go with them to let the natives know why it was that the “Beritani war-canoes” had sailed to New Guinea.