Piracy, as most people are aware, is not yet quite extinct in Chinese and East Indian waters, despite the efforts that have been made to utterly stamp it out. But it is not generally known that along the shores of Dutch New Guinea, on both sides of the great island, there are still vigorous communities of native pirates, who will not hesitate to attack even armed trading vessels. These savages combine the business of head-hunting with piracy, and although they do not possess modern firearms, and their crafts are simply huge canoes, they show the most determined courage, even when attacking a vessel manned by Europeans.
The annual reports of the Governors of Dutch, German and British New Guinea, detailing the murderous doings of these head-hunting pirates, are as interesting reading as the tales of Rajah Brooke and Stamford Raffles, and the practical suppression of piracy in the East Indian Archipelago, but seldom attract more than a few lines of comment in the public press.
In writing of pirates of the present day, I shall not go beyond my own beat of the North and South Pacific, and speak only of events within my own personal knowledge and observation. Before entering into an account of some of the doings of the New Guinea “Tugeri,” or head-hunter pirates, I shall tell the story of two notable acts of piracy committed by white men in the South Pacific, less than ten years ago. The English newspapers gave some attention to one case, for the two principal criminals concerned were tried at Brest, and the case was known as the “Rorique tragedy”. Much comment was made on the statement that the King of the Belgians went to France, after the prisoners had been sentenced to death (they were Belgian), to personally intercede for them. The French press stigmatised His Majesty's action as a scandal (one journal suggesting that perhaps the pirates were pretty women in men's garb); but no doubt King Leopold is a very tender-hearted man, despite the remarks of unkind English people on the subject of the eccentricities of the Belgian officers in the Congo Free State—such as cutting off the hands of a few thousands of stupid negroes who failed to bring in sufficient rubber. There are even people who openly state that the Sultan of Turkey dislikes Armenians, and has caused some of them to be hurt. But I am getting away from my subject The story of the Roriques, and the tragedy of the Niuroahiti which was the name of the vessel they seized, is one of the many grisly episodes with which the history of the South Seas is so prolific. Briefly it is as follows:—
About the end of 1891 the two brothers arrived at Papeite, the capital of Tahiti, from the Paumotu Group, where, it was subsequently learned, they had been put on shore by the captain of an island trader, who strongly suspected them of plotting with the crew to murder him and seize the ship. Nothing of this incident, however, was known at Tahiti among the white residents with whom they soon ingratiated themselves; they were exceedingly agreeable-mannered men, and the elder brother, who was a remarkably handsome man of about thirty-five, was an excellent linguist, speaking German, French, Italian, English, Dutch, Spanish and Zulu fluently. Although they had with them no property beyond firearms, their bonhomie and the generally accepted belief that they were men of means, made them the recipients of much hospitality and kindness. Eventually the younger man was given a position as a trader on one of the pearl-shell lagoon islands in the Paumotu Group, while the other took the berth of mate in the schooner Niuroahiti, a smart little native-built vessel owned by a Tahitian prince. The schooner was under the command of a half-caste, and her complement consisted, besides the captain, of Mr. William Gibson, the supercargo, Rorique the first mate, a second mate, four Society Island natives, and the cook, a Frenchman named Hippolyte Miret. The Niuroahiti traded between Tahiti and the Paumotus, and when she sailed on her last voyage she was bound to the Island of Kaukura, where the younger Rorique was stationed as trader. She never returned, but it was ascertained that she had called at Kaukura, and then left again with the second brother Rorique as passenger.
Long, long months passed, and the Australian relatives and friends of young Gibson, a cheery, adventurous young fellow, began to think, with the owner of the Niuroakiti, that she had met a fate common enough in the South Sea trade—turned turtle in a squall, and gone to the bottom with all hands.
About this time I was on a trading cruise in the Caroline Islands, and one day we spoke a Fiji schooner. I went on board for a chat with the skipper, and told him of the Niuroakiti affair, of which I had heard a month before.
“By Jove,” he exclaimed, “I met a schooner exactly like her about ten days ago. She was going to the W.N.W.—Ponapê way—and showed French colours. I bore up to speak her, but she evidently didn't want it, hoisted her squaresail and stood away.”
From this I was sure that the vessel was the Niuroakiti, and therefore sent a letter to the Spanish governor at Ponapê, relating the affair. It reached him just in time.
The Niuroakiti was then lying in Jakoits harbour in Ponapé, and was to sail on the following day for Macao. She was promptly seized, and the brothers Rorique put in irons, and taken on board the Spanish cruiser Le Gaspi for conveyance to Manila Hippolyte Miret, the cook, confessed to the Spanish authorities that the brothers Rorique had shot dead in their sleep the captain, Mr. Gibson, the second mate, and the four native sailors.
The trial was a long one, but the evidence was most damning and convincing, although the brothers passionately declared that Miret's story was a pure invention. Sentence of death was passed, but was afterwards commuted to imprisonment for life, and the Roriques are now in chains in Cayenne.