The Call Of The South by George Lewis Becke (i read book .TXT) 📕

Tupinier Island (twenty miles to the east) and had been badly beaten, losing sixteen men. But, they proudly added, they had been able to carry off eleven of the enemy's dead, and had only just finished eating them. The chiefs brother, they said, had been badly wounded by a bullet in the thigh (the Tupinier natives had a few muskets) and was suffering great pain, as the "doctors" could not get it out.

Now here was a chance for me--something which would perhaps lead to our getting a number of these cannibals to recruit for Samoa. I considered myself a good amateur surgeon (I had had plenty of practice) and at once volunteered to go on shore, look at the injured gentleman and see what I could do. My friend Bobaran in New Britain I had cured of an eczemic disorder by a very simple remedy, and he had been a grateful patient. Here was another chance, and possibly another grateful patient; and this being a case of a gunshot wound, I was rather keen on attending to it, for the Polynesians and Melanesians will stand any amount of cutting about and never flinch (and there are no coroners in the South Seas to ask silly questions if the patient dies from a mistake of the operator).

Morel (the captain), the interpreter and myself went on shore. The beach was crowded with women and children, as well as men--a sure sign that no treachery was intended--and nearly all of them tried to embrace my interpreter. The clamour these cannibals made was terrific, the children being especially vociferous. Several of them seized my hands, and literally dragged me along to the house of the wounded man; others possessed themselves of Morel and the interpreter, and in a few minutes the whole lot of us tumbled, or rather fell, into the house. Then, in an instant, there was silence--the excited women and children withdrew and left the captain, the interpreter, some male cannibals and myself with my patient, who was sitting up, placidly chewing betel-nut.

In ten minutes Morel and I got out the bullet, then dressed and bandaged the wound, and gave the man a powerful opiate. Leaving him with his friends, Morel and I went for a walk through the village. Everywhere the natives were very civil, offering us coco-nuts and food, and even the women and children did not show much fear at our presence.

Returning to the house, we found our wounded friend was awake, and sitting up on his mat He smiled affably at us, and rubbed noses with me--a practice I have never before seen among the Melanesians of this part of the Pacific. Then he told us that his womenfolk were preparing us a meal which would soon be ready. I asked him gravely (through the interpreter) not to serve us any human flesh. He replied quite calmly that there was none left--the last had been eaten five days before.

Presently the meal was carried in--baked pork, an immense fish of the mullet kind, yams, taro, and an enormous quantity of sugar-cane and pineapples. The women did not eat with us, but sat apart. Our friend, whose name was Darro, had six wives, four of whom were present He had also a number of female slaves, taken from an island in Vitiaz Straits. These were rather light-skinned, and some quite good-looking, and all wore girdles of dracaena leaves. Neither Darro nor his people smoked, though they knew the use of pipe and tobacco, and at one time had been given both by a sandal-wooding ship. I promised to give them a present of a ten pound case of plug tobacco, and a gross of clay pipes--I was thinking of "recruits". I sent off to the brig for the present, and when it arrived, and I had given nearly one hundred and fifty cannibals a pipe and a plug of tobacco each, the interpreter and I got to work on Darro on the subject of our mission.

Alas! He would not entertain the idea of any of his fighting men going to an unknown land for three years. We could have perhaps a score or so of women--widows or slaves. Would that suit us? No, I said. We did not want single women or widows. There must be a man to each woman.

Darro was "very sorry" (so was I). But perhaps I and the captain would accept two of the youngest of his female slaves as a token of his regard for us?

Morel and I consulted, and then we asked Darro if he could not give us two slave couples--two men and two women who would be willing to marry, and also willing to go to a country and work, a country where they would be well treated, and paid for their labour. And at the end of three years they would be brought back to Darro, if they so desired.

Darro smiled and gave some orders, and two strapping young men and two pleasant-faced young women were brought for my inspection. All were smiling, and I felt that a bishop and a brass band or surpliced choristers ought to have been present.

These were the only "blackbirds" we secured on that voyage from Rook Island; but three and a half years later, when these two couples returned to Darro, with a "vast" wealth of trade goods, estimated at "trade" prices at seventy-two pounds, Darro never refused to let some of his young men "recruit" for Fiji or Samoa.

I never saw him again, but he sent messages to me by other "blackbirding" vessels, saying that he would like me to come and stay with him.

And, although he had told me that he had personally partaken of the flesh of over ninety men, I shall always remember him as a very gentlemanly man, courteous, hospitable and friendly, and who was horror-struck when my interpreter told him that in England cousins intermarried.

"That is a horrid, an unutterable thing. It is inconceivable to us. It is vile, wicked and shameless. How can you clever white men do such disgusting things?"

Darro and his savage people knew the terrors of the abuse of the laws of consanguinity.



CHAPTER XIII ~ ON THE "JOYS" OF RECRUITING "BLACKBIRDS"

A few years ago I was written to by an English lady, living in the Midlands, asking me if I could assist her nephew--a young man of three and twenty years of age--towards obtaining a berth as Government agent or as "recruiter" on a Queensland vessel employed in the Kanaka labour trade.

"I am told that it is a very gentlemanly employment, that many of those engaged in it are, or have been, naval officers and have a recognised status in society. Also that the work is really nothing--merely the supervision of coloured men going to the Queensland plantations. The climate is, I am told, delightful, and would suit Walter, whose lungs, as you know, are weak. Is the salary large?" etc.

I had to write and disillusionise the lady, and as I wrote I recalled one of my experiences in the Kanaka labour trade.

Early in the seventies, I was in Noumea, New Caledonia, looking for a berth as recruiter in the Kanaka labour trade; but there were many older and much more experienced men than myself engaged on the same quest, and my efforts were in vain.

One morning, however, I met a Captain Poore, who was the owner and master of a small vessel, just about to leave Noumea on a trading voyage along the east coast of New Guinea, and among the islands between Astrolabe Bay and the West Cape of New Britain. He did not want a supercargo; but said that he would be very glad if I would join him, and if the voyage was a success he would pay me for such help as I might be able to render him. I accepted his offer, and in a few days we left Noumea.

Poore and I were soon on very friendly terms. He was a man of vast experience in the South Seas, and, except that he was subject to occasional violent outbursts of temper when anything went wrong, was an easy man to get on with, and a pleasant comrade.

The mate was the only other European on board, besides the captain and myself, all the crew, including the boatswain, being either Polynesians or Melanesians. The whole ten of them were fairly good seamen and worked well.

A few days after leaving Noumea, Poore took me into his confidence, and told me that, although he certainly intended to make a trading and recruiting voyage, he had another object in view, and that was to satisfy himself as to the location of some immense copper deposits that had been discovered on Rook Island--midway between New Britain and New Guinea--by some shipwrecked seamen.

Twenty-two days out from Noumea, the _Samana_, as the schooner was named, anchored in a well-sheltered and densely-wooded little bay on the east side of Rook Island. The place was uninhabited, though, far back, from the lofty mountains of the interior, we could see several columns of smoke arising, showing the position of mountaineer villages.

It was then ten o'clock in the morning, and Poore, feeling certain that in this part of the coast there were no native villages, determined to go ashore, and do a little prospecting. (I must mention that, owing to light weather and calms, we had been obliged to anchor where we had to avoid being drifted on shore by the fierce currents, which everywhere sweep and eddy around Rook Island, and that we were quite twenty miles from the place where the copper lode had been discovered.)

Taking with us two of the native seamen, Poore and I set off on shore shortly after ten o'clock, and landed on a rough, shingly beach. The extent of littoral on this part of the island was very small, a bold lofty chain of mountains coming down to within a mile of the sea, and running parallel with the coast as far as we could see. The vegetation was dense, and in some places came down to the water's edge, and although the country showed a tropical luxuriance of beauty about the seashore, the dark, gloomy, and silent mountain valleys which everywhere opened up from the coast, gave it a repellent appearance in general.

Leaving the natives (who were armed with rifles and tomahawks) in charge of the boat, and telling them to pull along the shore and stop when we stopped, Poore and I set out to walk.

My companion was armed with a Henry-Winchester carbine, and I with a sixteen-bore breech-loading shotgun and a tomahawk. I had brought the gun instead of a rifle, feeling sure that I could get some cockatoos or pigeons on our way back, for we had heard and seen many flying about as soon as we had anchored. At the last moment I put into my canvas game bag four round bullet cartridges, as Poore said there were many wild pigs on the island.

On rounding the eastern point of the bay we were delighted to come across a beautiful beach of hard white sand, fringed with coco-nut palms, and beyond was a considerable stretch of open park-like country. Just as Poore and I were setting off inland to examine the base of a spur about a mile distant, one of the men said he could see the mouth of a river farther on along the beach.

This changed our plans, and sending the boat on ahead, we kept to the beach, and soon reached the river--or rather creek. It was narrow but deep, the boat entered it