MASSADRE OF AN EXPLORING PARTY.

Poverty Bay Standard, Volume X, Issue 1227, 16 December 1882, Page 2

MASSADRE OF AN EXPLORING PARTY.

News has been received from Singapore of the murder of Mr Witti, an explorer In the service of the North Borneo Company, and several of his party, by “ head-hunters.” Mr Witti, who had been an officer in the Austrian army, was making an expedition in the direction of the Sibuco River, a region beyond the administration of the Company, whose officers, it is stated, were unaware of his intention. Mr Witti had a party of 17 men, some nine or ten of whom were told off to attend to the boats on the river. The other men pushed on in company with the explorer. The natives had shown no disposition to hostility, and the local chiefs (the tribes are, it is stated, the Muruts, though one account states they are Tandjoeing Dyaks) had hospitably entertained Mr Witti. While all his party were preparing to move forward Mr Witti sat down to make some notes in his diary. Suddenly from an ambush in the river about 300 natives, armed with poisoned arrows and spears, rushed upon him and his men, three of whom were immediately killed. Mr Witti defended himself with his revolver, and killed two of his assailants. The rest crowded upon him, however, and speared him to death. The others of his party escaped. From a hidingplace they saw one of the natives cut off Mr Witti’s head, while others cut off the limbs of his dead attendants, flung them, with the explorer’s head, into a boat, and went off with their trophies down stream. They also carried off Mr Witti’s papers and despatchbox. A police party of the Borneo Company was about to be despatched to punish the Muruts.