MASSACRE OF EIGHTEEN PERSONS.

Westport Times, Volume VII, Issue 1079, 10 June 1873, Page 3

MASSACRE OF EIGHTEEN PERSONS.

CANNIBAL EEAST AT NEW GUINEA. The Sydney Morning Herald of the 6th of May contains a lengthy account of the massacre of two boats' crews belonging to the brigantine Franz, at New Guinea, as furnished to the Colonial Secretary of Queensland. The following are a few of the particulars related : The brigantine was pearlfishing, and

the captain states that on November 12 he started the two large boats away well armed, in charge of tht mate, Henry Schleuter, with seventeen men and three weeks, water aud provisions, to prospect for pearl-shell. More men would have been sent in the boats, but eleven wore laid up with fever. Dn December 6, the boats being overduce, the captain became anxious, and sent another boat to search for the misssing men. The boat returned unsuccessful, and the captain of the Franz then appealed to the Eajah for assistance, and he instituted a search, ahd discovered Up the Carrbera Eiver seven guhs, a revolver, the mate's watch, a boat Compass, and the Hamburg colours, but had seen nothing of the boats. On December 30th the Eajah came on board the Franz, with three armed proas and forty five men, The captain, steward, and two men accompanied him in his proa; the second mate, with two men went in another proa, and one man in third proa. On January 3rd two of the proas returned with three bush natives whom they had caught; one of them, according to his own confession, had been actually one of the crowdj that had murdered the poor men. The captain relates the way the boats' crews had been murdered and hatean, as ascertained from the captured natives, in the following words :

The two boats had been lying under Efmatal Island ; three canoes from the mainland (New Guinea), and in each canoe fifteen men, and came off with ripe bananas and pineapples, which they gave to my men in the boats, and they went away, pulling towards the lands. Tbey had behaved quite friendly, and my poor men had not the remotest idea that those horrible men were cannibals, who contemplated coming back in the night to kill them all. My men in the boats had divided into two parties; some had lain down in the boats to sleep, and some had gone on shore, lit a fire, and slept there. Meanwhile the savages bad returned, and landed at the back of the island and walked across; here they had lurked in the dark bush close to my poor men, and watched them for hours until all were asleep, when they rushed upon them, killing them in the twinkling of an eye without even a cry being raised, and the whole party on shore was dead without those in the boat having any foreboding of it, and that they would themselves be corpses a few minutes after. When the horrible cannibals had killed the men on shore they went noiselessly into their canoes, rushed upon the poor men in the boat, and killed all of them without a shot having been fired, or even a cry had been raised. They returned with all the bodies to the village of Crarbera. There they cut off the heads and kept them as trophies, and sold the bodies to a neighboring tribe, which has cooked and eaten them. The three prisoners were horrible-looking fellows, especially the fellow that had helped to murder my poor men. They are a different race to that of the more civilised Papuans ; they have a dirty brown skin, short poodle hair, flat African noses, projecting lips, and are of a horrible appearance.