DISAPPOINTMENTS 
vented me from carrying on my scientific work. I 
had come to Merauke to explore and collect in new 
territory, but the long-standing difficulty with the 
warlike Tugeri tribe was still acute, and the very day 
after I landed we had abundant proof of how unwise 
it would be to penetrate into the interior. On that 
day three or four Javanese convicts who were working 
on the edge of the clearing were heard to shout as 
though in distress. In five minutes an armed guard 
was on the spot, but all the convicts were found 
decapitated by the head-hunting Tugeri. The heads 
had been taken off with the bamboo knife so cleverly, 
that the doctor on board our ship told me that no 
surgeon with the latest surgical instruments could have 
removed so many heads in so short a time. 
This bamboo knife of the Tugeri is a very remark- 
able weapon. It is simply a piece of cane stripped 
off from the parent stem, leaving a natural edge as 
keen as the finest tempered steel. 
Nor was this the only outrage. A Chinese woman 
had died, and had been buried in the graveyard near 
the Settlement. ‘The next morning the grave was 
found to have been violated, the head taken, and all 
the clothing removed. The Tugeri never showed 
themselves all this time, but it was known that they 
were watching Merauke from the dense screen of 
undergrowth which came down to the edge of the 
clearing. 
British settlers on the western boundary of British 
New Guinea have for a long time been harassed 
by Tugeri raiders from the Dutch side, and the 
Lieutenant-Governor’s report for 1899-1900 contains 
44 
