We rode on. Ghosts were real, snakes only a nuisance in a country where anything could happen. Except mules. According to the planters there was just one mule in Papua; and his long ears waved over a fence at the Seventh Day Adventist Mission. Natives marveled and fed him votive yams; because he was a member of God’s house, locally presided over by a missionary they called “Smiling Charley.”
The first time his celebrated animal strayed away, Charley organized his black men to search for it. They hunted until they were tired out. Smiling Charley went on over the brow of the next hill, and there was the mule. Charley thought this was an opportunity to demonstrate the power of prayer, so he went back and said, “Boys, let’s pray for guidance.” They prayed, and in a few minutes overtook the mule. A week or two later it strayed again, much to the chagrin of the boys who had to do all the carrying when it wasn’t there. Smiling Charley tried to organize another search, but the boys were unwilling. He questioned them and they said, “More better you pray first time, Taubada.” So Charley had to pray, but it didn’t work so well, for it was a week before the mule came home.
Dusk was falling when we left Smiling Charley’s Seventh Day joyfulness. After shadows began blackening the hills, Archie McAlpin said, “We’re in the Koiari country now, and we’d better push along. On the slope there, you can see the graveyard.” Stones were like skulls among the scrub. “Those are planters that the jungle got the best of.” Everybody who’s been a week in Papua knows how the jungle defeats all but the strongest—malaria, accidents, bites and infections, all take their toll of the pioneering white.
A mountain chill blew from the pale stones. A tall horseman came toward us, and I tried to forget the mounted ghost. But Archie McAlpin sang out, “Hello, Sam!” The horseman stopped. Archie said, “Seems to me, Sam, that you’re not giving this graveyard a very wide berth.” “Me? Archie, I never see ghosts.”
“Then I suppose, Sam, you wouldn’t mind sleeping among the graves?”
“I may be crazy,” Sam said, “but I’m not a bloody fool. If I see any ghosts there’ll be one more horseman riding over the Bluff. He won’t be back, either.”
He galloped on. No, people don’t loiter on the Jawavere trail. I was still thinking of the lonely Englishwoman who couldn’t go home; her poor shadow was earth-bound to Papua.
How about the ghosts of indentured natives, confused spirits that can never find their way back to the villages they loved because they were born there? Here’s a scrap from my diary, written from a survey which I made a little later:—
On Saturday P.M. gave lecture to natives. Back of the boys’ houses found evidences of gross soil pollution ... natives must be educated to some idea of sanitation.... Seem well fed and contented, save for a lot from the Dutch border, some of whom have died for no apparent cause, other than homesickness....