To Turn Back Was Out Of The Question.

I had come a good way, and I had no idea where the rest were, and from the uproar at the back I imagined the Doboduras were coming down the track after me.

I hastily decided to go by the old saying, "If you go to the right you are right," and it was well for me that I did so, as I found out later from the police that if I had gone to the left - well, there would have been nothing left of me, especially after one Dobodura meal, as the enemy were there in full force. As it was, I soon afterward came up with the police, feeling rather shaky and white.

The police had captured a middle-aged woman, whose face and part of her body were thickly plastered with clay. This was a sign of mourning. We learnt that she was a Notu woman, who had been captured some time previously by the Doboduras. She was much alarmed, and whined and beat her breasts, and caressed some of the police. We made her come on with us, and the rest of the party soon joining us, we came to another village, which we "rushed," but it, too, was deserted. There was more killing of fowls and pigs, and a scene of great confusion as our people speared and clubbed them and ran about in all directions, looting the houses, picking coconuts, and cutting down betel-nut palms, many of them decorating themselves with the beautifully variegated leaves of crotons and DRACAENAS, some of which were of species entirely new to me. It seemed a bit curious that these wild cannibals should exhibit such a taste for these gay and brilliantly coloured leaves and flowers, which they had evidently transplanted from forest and jungle to their own village.

We continued our way through bush and open country, our police having slight skirmishes with small bands of natives. One big Dobodura rushed at Sergeant Kimi with uplifted club, but Kimi coolly knelt down and shot him in the stomach when he was only a few yards off. The round, sharp stone on the club being an extra fine one, I soon exchanged it with Kimi for two sticks of tobacco (the chief article of trade in New Guinea, and worth about three half-pence a stick).

Toku, Monckton's boy, and a brother of my boy, Arigita, who carried his master's small pea-rifle, shot a man in the back with it as the man fled, and thereafter was a hero among the boys. Arigita wished to emulate his brother, and begged hard to do some shooting on his own account with my twelve-bore shot gun, which he carried, and he seemed very much hurt because I would not allow it.

We passed through many more villages, embowered in palm groves, and in each village we saw plenty of human skulls and long sticks with human jawbones hanging upon them.

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