A BLACKFELLOW'S DUEL.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 2501, 21 July 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

A BLACKFELLOW'S DUEL.

I was once so fortunate as to be an eyewitnessof one of their duels. The cause of the quarrel was, of course, a lady. A young fellow of our tribe had abducted a young woman, doubtless with her full consent, from some neighbours, and after days of palaver, it was settled by the seniors of the two tribes that satisfaction be given to the brother or cousin of the girl by single combat. The rival septs were camped on either side of the river; we forbade them to cross it for huuting purposes or any other, on penalty of having their dogs shot, a convenient form of coercion with half-wild blacks ; had they not been kept apart, there would have been manslaughter. On the appointed day oue party crossed the river and made two or three fires in our paddock, about a hundred yards from the rival camp. There they sat, in almost total silence, for nearly an hour. Then a tall young fellow with a white fillet round his brows, and a few yellow cockatoo feathers stuck in his mop of hair, after saying a few words to the old men, walked out in the open : he was nearly naked, and looked like a statue as he stood in the sun with the light shining on his bronze limbs, waiting, with six reed spears, his throwing stick, and little narrow shield in his haud. He was followed by au old woman, .who squatted down twenty yards behind him Then forth stalked the gay Paris, accompanied by two or three old warriors, who, after some yelliug confabulation .with the othcrparty, stationed their man opposite, and about twenty-five yards away. Paris stuck his six spears in the ground, standing with his little shield held by tho middle, iu his left hand, his' eye never off his antagonist, his throwing stick in his right ; the girl, the cause of the battle, running out behind, and crouching some thirty yards from him. Then; after a shout or two from the camps, the first man seemed galvanised into sudden fury, aud, jumpiug from side to side, hurled all six spcara at his adversary as hard as he could throw them au'l almost as quickly as a man might fire the chambers of a revolver. The other fellow stood quite quiet, with his little red and white painted oval shield extended, and parried each spear as it came with a turn of his wrist; each lance seemed to touch tho edge of the shield, glance, and bury itself with a swish into tho grass, like a snake. The girl sat quietly, rolled up in her possum rug. just out of the line of the spears. The old gin, behind the challenger, had pulled her skin cloak over her head, and was slamming it on the ground, yelling curses, and dancing like a she devil, as these hags always do when there is any mischief going on. The women in both camps were yelling and screaming, and the men seemed to be trying to keep them quiet. Then one of the old men called out to defendant, who picked up his spears, aud throw them quite gently one by one iu the direction of the challenger, they were seized by the old woman, who broke them one after another. The girl picked up the spears which had beeu thrown at her young man, and handed them to one of the elders. There was tremendous yabbering and yelling in the camps until late in the day, when the strange tribe cleared out. Our black told us that everything had been done properly, that there was no more anger between them— 1 Baal koola now, I —and there would be no fighting. The reed spear is a beautiful weapon. A sharp barbless head, about twenty-six inches long, of heavy wood, is attached with gum to a strong reed, about five feet long. The last joint of the reed is out oft'short, and firmly bound with sinew, to receive the hook of the throwing stick. The sling-like action of this latter will, in skilful hands, propel the lance with dangerous force full eighty yards. The black children practice as soon as they can run with toy spears, the target being a disk of bark bowled along the ground. Asbestos clothing has been used by the Paris Fire Brigade with success, and is soon to be adopted by the London firemen. In the Republican Senatorial caucus recently, it was charged that there 50,000 votes cast at the Louisana election in excess of the voting population of the State. Three international exhibitions will be held in Europe this year—in Denmark, Belgium, and Spain, The one in the latter, which will be hold in Barcelona, is the first enterprise of the kind in which that country ever engaged. The Consolidated Railway of Connecticut has adopted a bell-ringing tell-tale to warn employes of a bridge. The car wheels strike an automatic fixture on the track as a bridge is approached, and the warning is then given tho whole length of the train. A curious feature of the Indian boom for General Harrison at Chicago is to be an organization known as the "Tippicanoe Club " —aged men who voted for William Henry Harrison as President, Five cars will be needed to transport these veterans. It is safe to say that this display will be unique. " I see," observed Mrs Snaggg, " that some eminent men think the Garden of Eden was located in the Mississippi Valley." "That may be true," replied Mr Snaggs, " for the ark rested in the Southem States." "It did?" "Yes; Noah came out of the Arkansaw land, you know."—Pittsburg Chronicle. The young lady, Miss Cornelia Sorabji, whoa short time ago astonished the world by coming out at the top of the roll of Bachelors of Art at Bombay, has soon reaped the reward of her exertions. She has been appointed a Fellow of the Arts College at Bombay, and has already entered upon her daily duties as a tutor. liV the metropolis alone dead larks of tho value of close upon £2500 are annually disposed of; and this, taking the all round wholesale price at 2s per dozen— which is probably above rather than below the mark—gives a grand total of no less than 300,000 of these birds for London alone. This, however, sinks into insignificance beside the fact that just 20 years ago, during the winter of 1567-GS, no less than 1,253,900 of these birds were taken into the town of Dieppe alone and the season was not regarded as other than an average one.