At this island, we found another of those queer graveyards that we had seen in Ontong Java. There were hundreds and hundreds of these strange graves, which proved that the reefs comprising this lagoon had once been well inhabited. p325
We collected several of their peculiar grass dresses at this place. I secured one just before it was finished.
There are dozens of islands in the Solomon group where few white men have ever been seen in the interior, and there are islands where a white man has never been seen at all. We made a call at one of these places—quite an accidental call. We were caught in the tail end of a hurricane and were blown about for a time, not knowing in the least where we were. Then there came a sudden calm, and we found ourselves near a little group of islands. Presently, the natives came out in canoes to see us. They were quite naked, and had straight hair standing out in huge masses around their heads. When they saw us, they were the most amazed people in the world. They felt our white skins, and rubbed them, to see if the colour would come off. Everything was bewildering to them. Once we thought that they were getting dangerous, and I presented my revolver at one of them. The man coolly took it by the muzzle, thinking it was a toy meant as a present. As with all the other savages, they were delighted with the mechanical toys we showed them. A Jack-in-the-box would keep a huge chief happy for hours. One of them found an old file, and thought it the greatest treasure in the world.
They left us rather suddenly. It was my fault. p326 Thinking to amuse them, I started the dynamo with which we lighted the boat, and gave one of them a shock. He yelled, jabbered something to the others, and at once they all sprang overboard and swam ashore. They didn't stop for their canoes, which we were obliged to cut adrift.
At night, a lot of them stood on the beach looking at us. We turned the searchlight on them, and as it swept along the shore, they shrieked and fled. Nor did they stop until they had reached the other end of the island, two miles away.
That particular island was not marked on our chart, nor was it on the latest and best charts that I later consulted at Sydney. Until we went to the place, the people believed that their little speck of an island, hundreds of miles from any other land, was the whole world. They knew nothing of tobacco or gin, which are so dear to other South Sea Islanders. And I have little doubt that there are many other islands hereabouts, where the natives believe themselves the only human beings in existence.
Strangely enough, the natives were never frightened or annoyed when I took photographs. They did not understand what it was all about, and they didn't care. But when I developed the plates and showed them their own pictures, they were delighted. In many places, they had never seen a picture before. There was one old chief whose photograph I took. When I showed him a print, he at once sent messengers to all the p327 islands round, and the people trooped in to see the wonder. I suppose they're still admiring it, if they haven't worn it out with admiration.
We made fast time back to the Solomons. We spent several days beating through the Manning Straits between the islands of Ysabel and Choiseul. The tides ran so strong here that it was all we could do to get through, and in many places we would pass clusters of little islands so slowly that the natives in canoes would surround us, and try to get aboard, but these woolly-headed people were so savage-looking that we did not care to allow them on our deck.
In this strait we passed queer little islands built upon reefs out from the main islands. These little handmade islands were inhabited as thickly as the people could stick on them, by coast natives that had been driven off the larger islands by the bush men coming down to the salt-water villages; and when the coast natives were forced to retreat, there was no place for them to go except to the reefs, so gradually there sprang up a reef-dwelling people who are never allowed to land on the mainland. As the bush boys are afraid of the water, they never attempt to make canoes, and the reef natives control the water so effectively that the bush men dare not even fish in the salt water; and as the reef natives cannot produce enough cocoanuts and fruit to keep them in a variety of foods, the two tribes compromise by allowing their women to come together on the beach, where fish are traded p328 for fruits and nuts. Men never dare come to the market-place where this trading is effected.
During the hurricane a few years ago, several of these islands were destroyed, and for several weeks the inhabitants were paddling among the different islands looking for a safe place to land. Some landed at hostile places and were killed. Others started new villages in uninhabited places; and some were unfortunate enough to land near plantations, and were forced into service. The traders were only too glad to get new recruits without the expense of blackbirding them.