We arrived at the beach a little after dark. Powler had shot some pigeons, fried their breasts, and made a soup from the remainder, and he had cut down a coconut tree and made a salad of the heart. We did full justice to the meal. After it was over, we sat and admired the roasted head—at least I admired it. Osa did not think much of it. As for Powler, he tried in vain to conceal that he thought me absolutely crazy to care so much about an old charred head.
The next day, while I was printing pictures on the beach, a delegation of cannibals appeared on the scene. They were good-natured and friendly. I showed them a big mirror. It was apparently the first they had ever seen. They were awed and puzzled, touching the glass with cautious fingers and looking behind the mirror suddenly, to surprise whoever might be fooling them. I photographed them as they peered at their reflection and grimaced like a bunch of monkeys. We invited them to luncheon. Their favorite dish of “long pig” was not on the bill of fare. But they ate our trade salmon and biscuits with gusto and smacked their lips over the coffee that Osa made for them—the first they had ever tasted. They remained with us until the following day, when we picked up our apparatus and sailed off on the first lap of our journey home.
In seven months in the New Hebrides I had exposed twenty-five thousand feet of film, and had, besides, about a thousand “stills.” I was well satisfied with my work; for I knew that my pictures would help the Western world to realize the life lived by the fast-disappearing primitive races of the earth; and I had actual evidence—my long-range photographs and the charred head that I so carefully cherished—that cannibalism is still practiced in the islands of the South Seas.
THE END
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
- Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.
- Archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed.