ADVENTURES IN NEW GUINA.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 74, 27 March 1877, Page 4

ADVENTURES IN NEW GUINA.

* We (Guardian) ex.tract from MclJjouyne Argus the following amu-ing review of a work of fiction recently publishdein London. The editor.and we presume author, chooses to style himself \tfee Bey. Henry Crocker, of St. Aun's Parsonage, New Zealand, but we beUwve if he had given his real name and address they would have been much more familiar to the people of Canter- . bury. The book _eep_s to have reached Melbourne," bufeit is not yet to b 4 procared in Christchuroh. We believe however, that copies will soon be on fale by our local booksellers :— " Captain Lawson V extravagant fiction, and the interest which has been awakened in New Guinea, by recent , projects for its colonisation, have cotri- ; bined to direct attention to it as a suitable locale for the exerpise of the! romancer's arf. And ac, according to j the.: hackneyed remark of Tacitus.;; "everything unknown is magnified,"! the writer bf a story like tbe present; c does not feel himself precluded from ; peopling the unexplored interior of; .New Guinea with boa constrictors 51 feet in length, capable not only of. swallowing «'vast crocodiles," but of digesting and assimilating their scaly fhte^aments. _£ s to t tj e auriferous refourtses ;of the island, it is' to be hoped that ho adventurous diggere will get hold of Louis Tregance and read it au pied de la leltre, or we shall have a rash to the land of the Orangwoke, accompanied by speculative shipments of stores and hardware to the city of Kootar. " Adventures in New Guinea" may be described as a book constructed on the model of Jules Verne's popular ybrks; although the vraisemblance of its details is less conspicuous and consistent than that which the French writer contrives to maintain. The narrative purports to be issued under the sponsorship of the Rev. Henry Crockfer, of St. Ann's Parsonage, ."Wiremai, New Zealand; a place which may be looked for in the same atlas as that which contains tbe city of Lagado. The hero of the story is a Frenchman, who runs away to sea when a boy, visits ] ; Liverpool, i is struck down by a fever, learns tbe English language, becomes a Freemason, ia converted to Prc"teatantisih, and sets sail for Australia in company with an old playfellow. After various adventures in Victoria, they resolve to make a trading voyage to New Gruinea. Unfortunately, the vessel was wrecked on the coast of that island, but Louis Tregance and four of the crew escaped with their lives, only to fall into the hands of a tribe of cannibals, who Worship the sun and have a depraved taste for baked mariners. His companions were cooked and eaten wiih no more sauce apparently than hung, r, but, marvellous to relate, the worthy priest who superintended the cutting up and cookery of the meat, gave Louis the grip of an "entered apprentice." This was returned with hearty good vwll — followed, perhaps, by " the sign ] .: distress"-— and tbe the delighted j .ttilor was liberated. Not unnaturally! ae struck up a friendship with his masonic emancipator, who had tbree 'wives, and suffered a good deal from the sacred thirst of gold. The reverend gentleman having told his young friend that there was some wonderful diggings in the country of the Orangwoks, on the ' other side of the Tanna Vorkoo Ranges, Louis, who had rocked a cradle at Bal-; larat and elsewhere, prevailed upon: his clerical preserver to forsake the baking of bodies and the curing of souls, and to accompany him on a gold-seeking ..expedition. This the priest agreed to, and they set out for Kootar, the capital of the auriferous region, accordingly. On their way they fell in with a detachment of cavalry, in the service bfHotarWokooy the monarch' of that realm. "Tbey were mounted," says the writer, "on little ponies striped with yellow and white, which moved with great speed. Tbeir riders were clothed in a long, loose-fitting' robe, reaching below the knee. This was the common dress of' the country. They were armed with swords, spears, and bows and arrows. Some of them carried shields of pure gold, and others had a breastplate of gold bars. They had a warlike look, although they were of small stature. , We were seized before we had time to offer resistance, even had we thought of doing so, aod bound with a well-made rope of bark and gold thread," The two prisoners were conveyed to the capital, on entering which everyone became silent or spoke only in whispers. . This is the custom of the place, for as yet the inhabitants are unacquainted with Legislative Assemblies, stump oratory, street organs, and the cognate blessings of civilisation. The King of Kootar lives in a seven storey palace, the conrt yard of which is paved with gold and marble. Two thrones of pure gold occupy a dais, which is surrounded by brilliant mirrors; the precious seats of royalty are defended by a couple of immense tigers, beautifully striped, and secured from devouring the courtiers by *' means of welt wrought ropes, twisted with gold wire." But the Orangwoks, though highly advanced in some respects, are terribly backwards io others. For example, every person _. presented at the Court grovels in the presence of royally. He ie described x 'ia "falling upon hia stomach, and .drawing himself along in this position until he is opposite the kiag's throne " Such a degradation is lortunaieiy ui_- * « Adventures in New Guinea." Edited b> the Key. 11; Crocker. Londou; Sampaou, Low, aud Co.

known in Europe, and the fact helps fo show that, as Tennyson cays, "the grey b'-rbarian is lower than the Phriaiiio ohild." Tbe monarchy of K 'Otar is «lective, and the sovereign is chosen from one of the prin"ipal families, "nly he must not be more th m four leet high The Orann-woks are of opinion ib«t subjects, when proyi iio-i ''t=' em°" ! res wiihT'a ruler, Want but little v . uw, Nor want that liule long. Placed in the house ot a chief named Kay-tar, Louis Tregance teaches his daughter Lamlaun English and drawing, and ends by falling iv love with her. j But as he represents himself to be an experienced miner, he is sent by the King to the Waitara district, where all tbe gold comes from, a region surrounded with glaciers, volcanoes, gigaatic boa-constrictors, and . every- _ thing that can make life agreeable. Here they.have a very ingenious method of i disposing of their criminals; and it waa . ascertained to be quite effiic.cioua in ; putting a stop to robberies of the gold eacort. Travelling through a wood with a Papuan named Lsuna, Tre« gance found his nose assailed by an i odour almost as bad as anything that can be smelt upon the Tarra, below the i Falls. "Before I could obtain an answer to my eager questions " he observes, " nay companion stopped, and, pointing to a tall tree, showed me the corrupting bodies of five men. They were enfolded by the coils of a huge snake, which was wound round them very elaborately. The snake, of the boa-constrictor kind, was about 17ft in length. Uf course (?) it was dead, and had been used as the instrument of death to the unfortunate men." Loving in life, iv death they were not divided. And here we may parenthetically indulge in a little remark expressive of our admiration for that child-like faith which is the beautiful characteristic of some religious newspapers. The Nonconformist of the Bth of November, in reviewing this book, placidly remarks, "In spite of much that seems improbable enough in the narrative, we are bound to accept it as genuine." Sweet, confiding soul ! At page 119 Louis Tregance sees a boa-constrictor 60ft long, and at page 145 he describes an animated fight between one of these reptiles and a huge crocodile. The boa having j?ot tbe better of the huge j saurian, swallowed him, tail and all, after which "he coiled himself up to sleep," which must have been rather a difficult operation with the unelastic monster inside of him; and then Louis and his companions "killed the great brute, and cut off iis wrinkled head " an incident which the Nonconformist is " bound to accept as genuine." Ai page 168 we hear of " tribes of women who live entirely by themselves, and kill any man who fulls into their han In except at certain seasons of the year •" aud on the nest page we hear of a tribe of men wito tails, und these are so long that when tbey sit down tbey h..ve to make holes in ihe ground to coil then. up in. "We do not proj>__ •> I 1 (WV T Treg&nce's adventurist sioo, as tbat would be i. „: ; . u _ thor by forestalling the -,_,_o-.-*jst which the reader may be expected to feel in his narrative. Enough to say that the book is full of romantic incident and excitiug situations, and tbat it is preferable on the whole to « Captain Lawson's ' book, because ' Louis Tregance ' has a much more lively imagination than the. author of that work, nor must we omit to mention that the • Adventures in New Guinea' is from the pen of. a Colonial wrLer, from whom we have little doubt his publishers will not be displeased to receive a second story , ia the same vein, even if the scene of it should be laid in the same island."