58 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



curios from them and stored them, they will steal 

 them and bring them back to you to sell again. 



After staying at Nadi for some four months I 

 went across to Cooktown, partly to dispatch my 

 collections to Europe and partly because I was 

 beginning to be somewhat alarmed about the fits of 

 fever from which I suffered. I went as far as Samarai 

 from Nadi in the cutter Mizpah, a little vessel which 

 had a tragic history afterwards. It was stolen from 

 Samarai by two Germans, who took it to New Britain, 

 where the natives captured the boat, killed one of the 

 Germans and took the other prisoner and kept him as 

 a slave. The Germans in stealing the boat had had 

 the idea of " living among the natives." The one who 

 survived had more experience of living among the 

 natives than he cared for. They kept him in a kind 

 of slavery, and whenever a Government boat came 

 near their village they would truss him up on a pole 

 and take him into the jungle. Finally the Germans 

 heard about a white man being kept in the village 

 and sent an expedition to recover him. I think he 

 was cured of his desire to " live among the natives." 



Probably the idea of the natives in keeping him 

 as a prisoner was that he would be useful as a " magic " 

 worker. All the life of the natives of the South Sea 

 Islands is coloured by a belief in sorcery. Usually 

 the sorcerer is some fellow with more brains and less 

 industry than his fellows who pretends to be a " magic 

 man." In a more civilised state of life I suppose he 



