108 A NATURALIST IN CANNIBAL LAND 



farming, sold the Calliope and decided that I should 

 make an end of collecting. 



To some extent this decision was due, I think, to 

 annoyance on my part with the Government authori- 

 ties, and to the feeling that expeditions were going 

 to be made impossible for the future to private 

 parties. That annoyance was natural. Under the 

 conditions which ruled at first in the South Sea 

 Islands, white traders and collectors had come to 

 consider that they had the right to be a " law unto 

 themselves." They knew the country and the natives. 

 They had established themselves in advance of any 

 police or Government protection, and had come to 

 fairly good relations with the aboriginals. On the 

 whole, I think, that these conditions had been come 

 to without very much cruelty. Now settled authority 

 interfered with all kinds of rules and regulations, some 

 of which were resented as unnecessary or even harmful. 

 It has to be admitted that a certain amount of 

 what may be called " grandmotherly legislation " is 

 necessary in Government dealings with the Papuans. 

 The natives are children, and have to be treated as 

 such; and the white men must be compelled to give 

 them something more than fair play, something of 

 considerateness and patience. The extent of the 

 grandmotherly tradition in the Government officials' 

 treatment of the Papuans is amusingly illustrated in 

 a recent report from the Mekes district, when an 

 official gravely chronicles ; 



