New Guinea Mead Hunters.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7317, 10 June 1902, Page 6

New Guinea Mead Hunters.

Awful Scent' of Uioo<l.sli<.'i!

A sensational report conic Iroui Merauke, tho new sotticntcnl in Dutch New Guinea. The Dutch Government recently transported 200 prisoner*, chielly from Sumatra, to the settlement for the purpose of employing them in forming roads and improving the head quarters of the Governor and his stall". Tho prisoners were surrounded I) 3' a sixfeet barbed wire fence, but by some means escaped to the bush. They were not missed until the following day, and although armed parties were" sent out immediately they could not be traced. Nothing further was -heard of the eseapers for somo time, when a report was brought into the settlement that the whole band hud fallen into the hands of savages. The natives are known to bo very treacherous, and so far all efforts on the part of tho Dutch officials to establish friendly relations with them have been unavailing. They include in their following the notorious Tugati head hunters, who periodically visit the Fly lliveron.murderous expeditions. According to accounts now to hand thirteen at least of the Dutchmen were shown no (garter by the marauders. Each man as he was captured was decapitated, the bodies being left in the bush, and the heads carried off to a native village as trophies of the horrible slaughter. So far the Dutch ouicialshavo done nothing to punish the natives, and according to a passenger from the islands they are notlikely to do so, the Governor" holding that the men sought their fate by endeavoring to escape from justice through country inhabited by hostile tribes.