Us a visit to eat us, for the Papuan, though a savage,
is often most suave and courteous and by no means lacking in humour),
were reported to us as having many tails, but needless to say when
we made some prisoners, we were scarcely disappointed to find that
the said tails protruded from the back of the head (in much the same
fashion as the Chinaman's pigtail); in this case each man had many
tails, which were fashioned by rolling layers of bark from a certain
tree - closely allied, I believe to the "paper tree" of Australia -
round long strands of hair.
We three white men had many a long talk as to whether these
swamp-dwellers were worth going in search of, but I soon came round to
Monckton's way of thinking. Acland, alone, however, maintained to the
last that the whole thing was a myth, and jokingly said to Monckton:
"When you find these duck-footed people, you had better see that Walker
does not take them for birds, and shoot and skin a couple of specimens
of each sex and add them to his collection." (For my chief hobby in
this and many other countries all over the world consisted in adding
to my fine collections of birds and butterflies in the old country.)
As we three, with our twenty-five native police and four servant
boys, rowed up the Barigi River in our large government whaleboat,
on our way to search for these "duck-footed" people, I could not help
being struck with the very great beauty of the scene. Giant trees
laden with their burden of orchids, parasites and dangling lianas,
surrounded us on both sides, their wide-spreading branches forming
a leafy arcade far over our heads, while palms in infinite variety,
intermixed with all sorts of tropical forms of vegetation, and rare
ferns, grew thickly on the banks.
Some distance behind us came our large fleet of canoes, bearing our
bags of rice and over one hundred carriers, and as they paddled down
the dark green oily waters of this natural arcade, with much shouting
and the splashing of many paddles, it made a scene which is with me
yet and is never to be forgotten. As we proceeded, the river got more
narrow, and fallen trees from time to time obstructed our way. We at
length landed at a spot where we were met by a large number of the
Baruga tribe, who brought us several live pigs tied to poles, and
great quantities of sago, plantains and yams. They had expected us,
as we had camped in their country the previous night. They had been
"licked" into friendliness by Monckton, who less than a year ago (as
elsewhere mentioned) had sunk their canoes, and together with the aid
of the crocodiles, which swarm in this river, had annihilated a large
force of them. And now to show their friendliness they were prepared
to do us a good turn, by helping us to find these duck-footed people,
with whom (they told us) they were well acquainted.
Oyogoba, the chief of the Baruga tribe, came to meet us. He assured us
of the friendliness of his people, and himself offered to accompany
us. His arm had been broken in the encounter with Monckton and his
police, and Monckton had immediately afterwards set it himself. It
now seemed quite sound.
We soon resumed our journey, on foot, passing through very varied
country, plains covered with tall grass and bounded by forest,
through which at times we passed. At other times we had to force our
way through thick swamps in which the sago-palm abounded, from the
trunks of which the natives extract sago in great quantities.
About mid-day we arrived at a fair-sized village belonging to the
Baruga tribe. It was surrounded by a tall stockade of poles, and as
we entered it, the women sitting in their huts greeted us with their
incessant cries of "orakaiba, orakaiba" (peace). On this account the
natives of this part of New Guinea are generally termed "Orakaibas"
by other tribes.
The houses here seemed larger and better built than most Papuan houses
that I had hitherto seen, and there were many curious tree-houses
high up among the branches of some very large, trees in the village,
some being fully eighty feet from the ground. They had broad ladders
reaching up to them, and looked very curious and picturesque. These
ladders are made of long rattans from various climbing palms. These
rattans, of which there were three double strings, are twisted in
such a way as to support the pieces of wood which form the steps. In
one case a ladder led from the ground in the usual way to a house
built in a small tree about thirty feet from the ground, but a second
ladder connected this house with another one in a much larger tree
about eighty feet off the ground. I climbed the first ladder, but
the second one swayed too much.
These tree-houses axe built partly as look-out houses, from which the
approach of the enemy is discovered, and partly as vantage points
from which the natives hurl down spears at their opponents below
when attacked.
Resuming our journey, after a brief halt in this village, we soon
came to the Barigi River again, which we crossed, camping in a small
deserted village close by. Here I noticed several more tree-houses in
the larger trees. This had been a very hot day, even for New Guinea,
and I could not resist taking a most refreshing bathe in the river,
though I must confess I was glad to get out again, having rather a
dread of the crocodiles, which infest parts of this river, though
they were not nearly so numerous up here as in the lower reaches of
the river which we had traversed in the morning.
