A BOYS’ BOOK FOR MEN.

Hokitika Guardian, 5 March 1921, Page 4

A BOYS’ BOOK FOR MEN.

THE MOST THRILLING VOLUME OF THE YE AIL A book of entrancing interest for boys and their fathers has arrived m time for the Christmas holidays. Its title is “Some Experiences of a New Guinea Resident Magistrate,” beincr the personal and most thrilling a ventures of Captain C. A. W, Mono' ton, F.R.G.S., written by himself. ft is a plain tale and a true one, and is stranger than fiction; it is n riot■ ol real adventure, an orgy of crocodiles and cannibals, of beautiful coral islands, of strange men and strangei I,easts, and human dowers, and ban - raising happenings, all of which took place in those far-distant possessions ol the British Empire north of the coast of Queensland. ; ]] ere i s an account of a wonderful 1 fa mil v of fishing rats encountered in : the romantic •Trobriand Islands, oft New Guinea. I ‘-We had landed and camped tor the I night on a small coral island surrounded : |,v submerged coral boulders and, but 1 for a few stunted trees, bare ol all vegetation. ... “While sitting quietly there I noticed some rats going down to the 1 edec of the reef—lank, huiigry-look.ng brutes tlicv were, with pink. naked ! toils, j stopped on the point ol throwing lumps of coral at them, out of 1 curiosity to see what the vermin meant i to do at the sea. ■ “Rat after rat picked a tinttish lump ! of coral, squatted on the edge and 1 dangled his tail in the water; suddenly one rat gave a violent leap of about a 1 yard, and as be landed, 1 saw a crab l clinging to bis tail. ■‘Turning round, the rat grabbed tin j crab and devoured it, and then return- ' cd to bis stone; the while the othei .J ni ts were repeating the same perform- | once. What oil earth those rats did for fresh water, though, 1 don t know, j as there was none on tin" island that 1 could see. . . .” * * * * * i There are thrilling tales of crocoi diles, their appetite and their cunning j and one in particular who inhabited a deep pool in a small stream at Vanigeia, in Colliugwood Bay. Things came to such a pass that natives and cattle disappeared so rapidly that at last the people complained that they did not think much of a Government which could not rid them ol such a pest. At last the Resident .Magistral was induced to take extreme measures. “1 became really annoyed with the crocodile. ‘Kill a pig, a lat pig, and let it go rotten,’ I advised the villagers, •then I will come and deal with the brute.’ “1 went to Wanigela in about a week’s time; the pig we took with us was really high by then and a choice morsel for a crocodile. On to that pig’s corpse I tied about a pound ol dynamite, with a yard of fuse attached : then, pulling the whaler into the j middle of the hole the beast was sup- ! posed to inhabit, 1 lit the lose and chucked the pig over the side.

“I had fixed a live-minute fuse, turn sufficient, 1 thought, for the ciocodih to discover the delicious morsel wo had sent him : soon came the explosion, and a few seconds later out crawled on to the sandbank an enormous old crocodile, only to he greeted with a veritable hail of bullets, spears, and curses, whereupon he (lopped hack once more into his uucoinfoi table domicile. I don’t think he will trouble you again,’ 1 told the Wanigela people, and went off home.” • * * * •* From crocodiles we come to cannibals. On the shores of the Agaiambu Lake complaints were made by the Xotu tribe. “The Xotu, who were a set of murdering blackguards themselves and a curse to the coast, told me that they had hitherto been oil most friendly terms with the Dolniduro, hut that lately the latter tribe had been raiding them, killing by torture any people they captured. “ ‘We don’t mind fighting,’ said the Xotu, ‘and we don’t mind being killed and eaten, for that is the lot of men; hut we do object to having our arms ripped up and being tied to posts or trees by our sinews and having meat chopped off us until we die.’ ” The “Resident,” with his Kaili Kaili (faithful carriers) sets off to chasten the Dobudura. After a march inland at dawn the party emerges on to a grassy plain and sights one of the Dobudura villages. “They at once gave tongue to a prolonged blood-curdling war cry, ‘Oooogli! A a it! ’ . . . “in the centre of the village was a platform about four feet high stacked with skulls, some quite fresh, others with flesh adhering to them. “ ‘Ours,’ said the Xotu. ‘See that hole in the side of each skull? That is where they scrape out the fresh brains!’”

The Dobudura retire and there follows the pursuit through the inky darkness with the cannibals, invisible, silent, in a circle around them—“a thin invisible net which always gave when pressed, only to close again when we relaxed our pressure.” Finally the Dobudura are overcome and their capital village burned. “During the chase we entered village after village. Each had the same platform of skulls, some years old, some days; while in some villages an additional decoration in the form of ropes hung with human jawbones was provided. The skulls were till those of people killed and eaten. . .

Tli people known as sorcerers are a curse to the imaginative and superstitious natives. “I remember once an epidemic of measles breaking out at T’aiwa, on Cape Vogel, and the cheerful sorcerers persuaded the people that it would continue until a live man was cut open by them, which was accordingly done. On another occasion, at the back of Colliugwood Bay, Oelrichs, who was then my Assistant resident Magistrate, heard of a ease where they shoved lawyer vines, with thorns (like fish hooks) down tho throats of some of the people and then tore them up again.” The Resident Magistrate was always having trouble over the domestic difficulties of cannibals. At Mtixawa this situation required his immediate attention:

“A tribe named the Mokoru, lying to the north of Cape Nelson, captured and ate a number of runaway Mambare carriers ; they calmly told me that they would do the same to the police it I interfered with them, hut added that 1 mvself was so repulsively coloured that they would not dream of eating me, but'would feed me to the pigs instead!’ « * » * * Our women police are not such a new institution as one would imagine. ( “In the northern division, m Later yea r S , 1 had in one instance a woman as village constable. She had a very masterful personality, and had ruled , he,- village before the advent of the Government. ’ •She did splendid work, and only . ome gave me trouble, and that "as , when she summarily divorced her bus- . band ; he was rather glad than other-j wise, as the position of consort to the j official ladv was not altogether a bed j of roses. But then she picked out a line-looking young man of her village, | about ton years younger than herself, . and ordered him to marry hei. j “He was struck with consternation; at the pvespect and bolted for an adjoining village; she pursued him, and ,-an him in upon the charge ol disobeying the village constable. Two other village constables nearby were scandalised at the affair; they ran in the pair and brought them before me, when, in answer to my inquiries, the lady official stated her grievance. ••Why won’t you marry her?” I ask- ■ ed the man. ‘lt seems the host way to j settle the matter.’ •• ‘Fd sooner go to gaol,’ he said briefly. •• ‘Well, 1 am blessed if I see any way out of it,’' I said ; ‘if you return'to your village. 1 believe she will marry you sooner or later. Wanting to many you is not a crime.’ •• ‘Can I enlist in the Armed Constabulary?’ he asked; ‘1 should he safe there.’ ■• ’Yes, that "ill he the best ; 1 H , send you to Cape Nelson. 1 •• -Are von not going to make him ' murrv me?’ asked the redoubtable dame. I shook my head. ‘Then I suppose I’ll have to take so-and-so hack again,’ she remarked, naming her rc- ' ,-emly divorced husband—which. I may ~ mention, she finally did.” i ***** While one of the methods ol eommiti ting suicide hv the New Guinea natives is to climb a coco-nut tree and then ‘ drop head-first to the ground, their ideas of mourning for departed relatives is equally strange. ••At this first parade, after my re--1 torn to .Mekeo, when 1 was inspecting tfic men 1 found one of them all gashed l ' about the face and body. Uhat have 1 you been up to?’ I asked; ’more pineapples?’ 1 “lie grinned sheepishly, and explained that while I was array his grandfather had died, and so he had cut hims .-elf all over with broken glass as a sign ' of mourning. ' “The signs of mourning were almost 1 as varied as the tribes themselves. The Goodenougli Islanders had a horrid '' habit of cutting off their linger'joints ' with hits of obsidian —i.e. volcanic glass—until, alter a sickly season, (lie bands of some of the men were merely bleeding stumps. The Sunns cut down the coco-nut trees belonging to the de--1 ceased, until Sir William MacGregor * passed a regulation forbidding it : and ’ the Kaili Kaili used to hurl themselves face forward into the sea, and inhale salt water until they nearly hurst their ’ lungs.”