IN NEW GUINEA.

Hokitika Guardian, 4 July 1922, Page 3

IN NEW GUINEA.

I/AND OF MYSTERY

I ABOARD yacht speejacks

Off Coast of New Guinea. Against a dawn of heliotrope and ])iPK. rose blue and battlemented peaks and feel in}! our way through whitetoothed reefs the yacht came to New Guinea—to a land which is still in the Stone Age ana "'loch even today holds its mystery. Since it was taken over by the Commonwealth of .Australia in 1906 British

Xow Quinoa has been known ns Papua.. Its area is 02,000 square miles :uffl lts white population is but. a tbonsanrl. The day before we landed at Pert Moresby, the capital. Port Moresby is set upon a promontory on a coastline of rare tropical beauty, and its 200 inhabitants are but a handful compared with the 2.000 natives who dwell in a large marine village within two miles. To the little port come stealing m quaint drab schooners manned ™d officered by naked brown men and jrj-eat Inkatois— sailing canoes with huge iohster claw shaped lantecn sails—in from cruises of a hundred miles oi so down the coast. The day before we landed one of the finest black pearls in the world was stolen. The identity of the tluef was general knowledge, but there was no proof, and presently the lustrous drop of fascination would go south, carefully stowed in some safe biding place Strange things happen in this back

door to the primitive. The Papuan, even when, lie walks the grassed streets of tile capital is as Nature made him. There is no attempt at dressing him in absurd hats and bewildering black coats. , safety PIN rap-pings. i step into the TTanushada and you

might well believe that you were a thousand miles from a white man’s town. Over the oily blue water the hundreds of palm leaf lints stand on thin and spicily props, with narrow shaky gangways of logs acting as streets between the dwellings. Everywhere nude brown water-babies frisk, for these villagers from babyhood are as much at home in the sea as they arc oil the land. Up and down the strip of coconut-fringed beach the women pass with their gourds on their shoulders, and their ramis—varied coloured palm leaf kilts waggling saucily in tlic manner approved by local

fashion. ; abound. A tattooed savage, his mop of hair made gay with (lowers, a sharks’ teeth necket about i,is throat, a plaited anus hand and I icrocd nose all complete, was infinitely proud of his ear-rings than anything else. They were rusty safety-pins. i A capable compositor from the Go-• vernment Printing Office was seen at home. He was wearing a piece of ; siring for aLt ire, and Ms busily on gag- j t'd in lashing the stick steps leading to ; his house with pieces of grass fibre. : His wife, wearing only a rami, was at i worn in the hut making pottery. This is the chief industry of Hanna- i bada, and the products are notable for 1 taeir workmanship. No wheels are us- | ed, the bowls being patted into perfect ; shape, with the hands. A\ hen a fine j stock has been prepared the lakatois J are prepared for sea. Upon these rafts | Hunting on hollowed logs, a weird as- j sortment of people, pots, dogs and f"°d ■ is piled, and the fleet heads off down ; the coast. Tt may travel as far as 1 200 miles, and there the pottery is ■ traded for sago- one of the staple : foods and rands. The voyagers are . often away four months, and their re- | turn is greeted "ith enthusiasm. j The Papuan loves his gamble. There j was trouble in TTanuabnda on the day j we wore there. Two gentlemen had been engaged in a game of cards, the one losing first his money, then his ornaments." then his loin cloth, then his i house and finally wagering his wife. The cards were against him even in this last hot. Imt when it came to set- • fling this debt of honour the trouble ; arose. * ;

The winner declined to accept payment on the ground that the wife was too ugly to he worth house-room. Now there are things which no gentleman cbii stand. There was bloodshed. YOUNGER SON COLONISERS.

Tn Moresby wo met many of tin? Younger Soils, tlie men to whom the Empire owes so mtieli. They charmed anil interested the Americans pnrticeInilv, and they were the first to adm.t that to such as these Britain must largely attribute her pre-eminence as a coloniser. Tt "as good to he with these polished, sunburnt men. who sat in the dinner jackets and told in casual sentences of trips into the Flv River country where human skulls decor te reamlv ns a word. “Really awfully decent fellows at heart!” That sentence sticks in my mind. It. was applied in all honesty to a. trihe who had murdered three carriers and had done their best to dispose of the teller of tile story. There was no pose about these yion from the far-flung, isolated plantations They were true to type. You wifi find them, wherever the tropic sun is greeted by the flag. They make you feel good to be a Britisher.