That evening four Notu chiefs came into camp to thank us for killing
their enemies, and they brought with them presents of dogs' teeth and
shell necklaces, and seemed greatly excited, all talking at once,
each trying to out-talk his fellows, and wagged their heads at us
in turn. We left very early the next morning in our whaleboat for
the Kumusi River, but left all our carriers and stores with most of
the police behind in one of the Notu villages to await our return,
as we now felt sure that we could trust the Notu tribe.
It was a hot and uneventful voyage. A fish which looked like an
enormous sole, but which was larger than the whaleboat, jumped high in
the air not many yards away. Toward evening we arrived opposite the
bar of the Kumusi River, and we had a very uncomfortable few minutes
getting through the breakers into the river, for if we had been
upset we should soon have become food for the sharks and crocodiles,
which literally swarmed here. We got through the worst part safely,
but then stuck fast on a small sand-bank, and one or two good-sized
breakers half-filled the boat; but we all jumped out and hauled her
off the sand into the deep, calm waters beyond.
After rowing up the river a short distance, we landed at a spot
where there was a trader's store, looked after by an Australian
named Owen. From here miners go up the river to the gold fields in
the Yodda Valley, and cutters are constantly putting in at this store
with miners and provisions.
This district has the reputation of being one of the most unhealthy
spots in New Guinea, and the natives round here are none too friendly,
and hate the government and their police, so that during the last
three years, three or four resident magistrates in the locality have
either been murdered or have died of fever.
We arranged to have our meals with Owen at the store, and we slept in a
rough palm-thatched shed with a raised flooring of split palm-trunks,
which was very hard and rough to sleep on, and gave me a sleepless
night. We got two of our police to sleep in front of the doorway,
as it was more than likely that the natives might attempt to murder
us. These precautions may have been justified as, in the middle of the
night both Acland and I myself saw two natives peering into the hut.
The next day we sent off a messenger to the northern station for more
police, and it was fully a week before they arrived. Meanwhile we spent
our time dynamiting and catching fish. We caught some large ground
sharks fully four hundred pounds in weight, and also a "gorupa"
("groper"), a very large fish of about three hundred and fifty
pounds. This fish is the terror of divers in these parts they fear
it more than any shark. Both shark and fish proved most acceptable
to our police; they are especially fond of shark.
One morning about five o'clock I was aroused by hearing a shrill
war-cry close by. The police rushed up with their rifles and told us
we were attacked. It can be imagined it did not take us long to buckle
on our revolvers and seize our rifles and run, half-asleep as we were,
in the direction of the noise, which was repeated from time to time
in a very ferocious manner. On turning a sharp corner by the river,
instead of warlike warriors, we beheld about a dozen natives hauling
in the sharkline we had left baited in the water the previous evening,
with a very large shark at the end of it. Being greatly excited they
had from time to time yelled out their war-cry. We felt very foolish
at being roused from our slumbers for nothing, but still there was
some slight consolation in knowing that even the police were deceived.
Owen, the Australian, not long before had had rather an amusing,
and at the same time exciting, adventure with a large crocodile in
a swamp close to the store. He noticed it fast asleep in the swamp,
and so waded out to it through the mud, making no noise whatever. When
within a few yards of the saurian, he threw a double charge of dynamite
close up to it, and then turned to fly. He found he could not move,
but was stuck firmly in the mud. His struggles and yells for help had
meanwhile awoke the crocodile, which came for him with open jaws. It
looked as if it was a case of either being blown to pieces by the
dynamite or furnishing a meal for the crocodile.
Luckily the fuse was a long one, and the crocodile floundered about
a good deal in the mud ere it could reach him. Some friendly natives
rushed in and dragged him out just as the crocodile reached him. The
crocodile fled in one direction and the dynamite went off in another,
but Owen and the natives only just avoided the explosion.
Owen told me that there were about fifty miners in the goldfields
of the Yodda Valley, but that most of them were beginning to leave,
although there is plenty of gold to be got. The climate is a bad one,
and provisions, etc., are very dear, and so gold has to be got in
very large quantities to pay. As the miners decrease, there is bound
to be trouble with the natives, who are very treacherous.
