482 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
lJuNE 22, I9OI. 
A New Guinea Tragedy. 
Somehow it has ever been jtlie fate of Samoa to be the 
home of mistakes and the land of misconceptions. Everyr 
thing that is has been neglected, and everything that is 
not has uniformly been taken for fact, the result being by 
no means all that was to be desired. Among other things 
there seemed to be a common convention to foi-get that we 
were but a handful of white people and wofully dis- 
cordant at that, living on sufferance among a host of 
savage people. On every hand there was conclusive evi- 
dence of battle, murder and sudden death, yet with a wave 
of the hand all this evidence was brushed away, and we 
practically consoled ourselves with the air of looking upon 
Samoa as possessing more or less of the nature of ,a sum- 
mer resort. 
To be sure, it was only necessary to look at the lawn in 
Our official compound to spy the lo-inch shell which 
proved that it had on occasion been forced on navies as 
a duty to shoot up the place. No further away than our 
flag pole y/as a double proof that these still waters and 
steady trade winds had brought ruin to fleets, for both the 
mast itself and a mighty piece of wreck stuff at its 
tabernacle were relics of the Trenton and Vandalia, which 
had met their fate just around Matautu Point. We used 
to c-in complacently at the terror of the folk who lived 
back in the bush no niore than two miles from the 
beach, who had conniption fits as soon as it was dark and 
who kept a young battery of lightning rifles in every room. 
But there were bullet holes through and through the Con- 
sulate as a proof that Samoan wars respected official life 
no more than anybody else. Once it had fallen to my 
unaided lot to stand off a party of rebels who had learned 
of the arsenal of modern rifles and ammunition that was 
under our care for use should war break out. Even that 
seemed somehow imreal and merely a part of the comic 
opera which is the one thing with which the attempt to 
administer Samoan affairs can be compared. 
It is only now in the backward view and after putr 
ting Samoa half the world apart that it comes clearly 
into mind that life there was really life among the savages, 
and that the danger was but thinly veiled by consenting 
complacenc}^ Yet, as I have already indicated, there 
\vas every reason for us to know better. That we 
simply ignored the danger was not because it did not press 
upon us at every side. I remember when the wife of the 
Apia chief, Fa'atulia her name was, and a most matter of 
fact person, told me the story of her brother's disappear- 
ance, and later the identification of his bones cooked near 
a pit oven in the bush, all going to show that he had 
gone the wa}^ of all flesh and had become meat ; yet even 
such a story as this did not seem to possess any personal 
warning. About my only impression of that narrative is 
that I wondered how Fa'atulia could drink the "suamalie," 
the cheap and mawkishly sweet, red wine which was 
reserved for the visits of high chiefs' wives. 
Many such stories of the wildest aspects of South Sea 
life were brought to me on my cool veranda looking out to 
sea from the village green of Vaiala. One I recall in 
particular as a record of adventure of the wilder sort, 
especially interesting to me because I was intimately 
acquainted with the chief actor in the events, and was 
listening to it from his own lips over the tea cups in my 
island home. He was the captain of the British cruiser 
that was doing a tour of guard duty in our wretched 
little kingdom, and the story seemed to arise naturally 
from the surroundings, for we were watching just outside 
our reef the efforts of a Danish bark to work to wind- 
ward, so as to be able to lay a course that would set her 
clear of the group during the night. 
"That barkentine out there," said the captain, "was my 
first coirirnand." 
"Why, Captain," I exclaimed, "were you ever a slaver?" 
"Oh, come now I" he replied. "I like that, you know. 
The Royal Navy doesn't go in for slave dealing — rather 
the reverse. But it's refreshing the way you Americans 
have of describing one of the ancient and technically 
honorable pursuits of the Pacific Ocean. Morally, you 
are all right when you call the Dagmar out* yonder a 
slave ship, but technically you are all wrong, for she is a 
labor trader. We are to "blame for legalizing the traffic 
and giving it that name. That's why we have just to 
grin and bear it when the Germans hire a lot of cheap 
ships from the Danes and the Norwegees and fill them 
up with these wild islanders for work on the German 
plantations here and in the Marshalls. 'We can't say a 
word, but I'd just like to be around some time when an 
American cruiser should overhaul one of these labor 
traders on the high seas with the recruited labor in her 
hold like sardines in a tin. Your people spell the thing 
in the old way, and labor traffic is slavery just the same. 
I don't believe they would make an international question 
of it, but in the time I'm telling you about the Dagmar 
was neither a jackass bark nor a blackbirder, nor was 
her name Dagmar at all. In those days she was quite 
respectable, being no less than a British gunboat, H. M. S. 
Swinger. You are familiar with that type of ship, just big 
enough for a lieutenant's command, if he does not happen 
to be too big to squeeze into her tiny cabin. You must 
have had them here as guard ships, but for the most 
part on the Australian station they are used to do Survey 
work in among the islands of the western Pacific. It's 
not a half-bad billet for a young lieutenant, and if he 
only has the luck to discover a new island or outlying 
reef, and is willing to spend his own money in painting 
his ship once a year, his speedy promotion is a moral 
certainty, and meanwhile it's like running a yacht. 
"It was in Tryon's time that I was broken out of the 
ward room country of the Nelson and put in command of 
the Swinger. You will recall vSir George Tryon. He 
was the first admiral we ever had on this station, and we 
were his first command when he reached flag rank: he's 
the same one that made a blunder in maneuvers a few 
years ago in the Mediterranean and went down with his 
ship — a particularly neat way out of it. Well, as soon as 
I read my commission on my own quarter deck, I lost no 
time in clapping a mortgage on all my future prospects 
to raise the money to paint the ship. I slapped the paint 
on her the very first thing — did it in Farm Cove, right in 
the 84mirgrs sight— and when she was painted till she 
shone, 1 striped her from stem to stern, with a gold 
band— it was real gold leaf, too. After that the admiral 
recognized that I was a junior officer to keep an eye on, 
and he tried to make my billet a pleasant one. 
"Just about that time there was an aide at Govern- 
ment House who was no end of a swell at home, related to 
half the peerage in one way or another, held a commission 
in and a leave of absence from a crack regiment of 
cavalry. With all these qualifications, he became the sea- 
son's society idol, the envy of all the young squatters who 
came into Sydney for a fling, and the despair of our ser- 
vice, for, of course, we could not begin to compete with 
that sort of thing. Being just on the edge, as you might 
say, of the South Sea, this chup in his idle moments read 
rather extensiveh^ of the books that have been written on 
various phases of island life, and somewhat affected naval 
society in order to ask questions. According!}', it was no 
very great surprise when it was given out that the 
Governor had commissioned him to investigate the 'recidi- 
viste' question — you know that meant the disposition of 
the runaway convicts from New Caledonia, a topic that 
was then greatly worrying colonial statesmen. Of course 
this chap — we might as well call him Forrest — was no 
more interested in the ultimate destination of a parcel 
of French convicts than you are, but he was just crazy for a 
cruise about the islands. But it was a great surprise to 
me when the admiral told nic that Forrest was to make 
the cruise with me on the Swinger, and that as far as 
possible I was to take him wherever he wanted to go. 
The rule is in cases like that for the guest to put in the 
cabin stores, and that rule was a mighty lucky thing for 
me just then. I had almost come to the conclusion I 
should have to draw my ration in kind and live on that, 
for the gold leaf for that stripe was awfully expensive. 
Taking such a passenger, however, put me at once on 
Easy Street. All I had to do was to give him a list of 
the cabin stores that would be needed. He more than 
doubled the list Avhen he came to give the order— the wines 
and tobacco came out of Government House. When we 
came to lay out the cruise, he asked if it would not be 
as well to go to the Marquesas first off. Then I knew 
that he had been reading Herman Melville, and was just 
about ready for a disappointment. But I fell back on the 
terms of his orders, and pointed out that there was no 
recidiviste problem in the Marquesas — the convicts could 
never escape from New Caledonia to windward. But he 
had it all fixed as pat as you please, and I suppose made 
it seem very logical to the Governor. His argument was 
about this fashion: There were French people in the 
Marquesas. If they were convicted of high crimes they 
would be sent to Noumea ; if they should escape they 
would strive to reach Australia; the upshot being that 
the only logical thing to do was to begin his investigations 
at the fountain head— namely, the Marquesas. 
"I can assure you we had a great cruise in the Swinger, 
and I mention it now only because that put me on suoli 
good terms with Forrest as to make it almost imperative 
that I should be concerned with the second and tragic 
chapter. There was this to say about him : In a literary 
way he .seemed to accept all the fine-spun ideas of the 
novelists who have entered into a conspiracy to rank all 
the South Sea kanakas 'with but before' the angels them- 
selves. But in practice he could not quite go it. He 
made a whole lot of front, never went ashore except in the 
fidlest kind of full dress uniform — and I may remark 
that his regiment was manifestly one of the pictorial lot 
that you see in reviews. But with the people themselves 
he was very standoffish; he made them keep their dis- 
tance and never allowed any familiarity. You can imagine 
how that sort of thing would work with these kanaka 
kings and chiefs who strut through life as if they were 
as good as anybody and probably rather better. Why, I 
have seen him insist on shaking hands with a bunch of 
them through his handkerchief — he spread it all over his 
hand first, and then when they had done shaking hands 
with him, he threw the handkerchief into the fire. I don't 
hold_ with that sort of thing exacti}', not that I l^elieve in 
making the islanders your equal, but a man who is so 
dead set about them ought never to come among them. 
It's their home and their customs, and they are entitled to 
them, and those who don't like them don't have to come 
anyway. I told him often it was lucky he was not off by 
himself alone on this trip, for he'd most likely never come 
back. It was simply astonishing that a man who was so 
keen set on the kanakas of the story books and who 
seemed to find so much enjoyment in his cruise about the 
islands should have such a down on the real islanders. 
"This cruise with me served to start in him a desire to 
do some exploration off his own bat. I suppose he was 
after the Geographical Society's gold medal or member- 
ship in the inner circle at the Travelers. Still, it's an 
innocent enough ambition, and there has been any quantity 
of good work done by these amateurs of geography. The 
.spot he selected for his exploration was New Guinea. 
It's ju.st as true to-day as it was then that New Guinea 
is so completely unknown that if you will only strike 
back from the coast anywhere at random you will dis- 
cover something ncAV, and the further back you go the 
more discoveries you will_ make. But it has this ad- 
vantage, that the further in you get the less likeHhood 
there is of your ever winning out to tell the world about 
the things you have discovered. It's not entirely climate 
that's at fault; quinine might protect you from the coun- 
try fever, but it would be a difficult matter to protect your- 
self from the large and perennially hungry population. A 
man might make friends with them — it has been done — 
but I have made it quite plain that Forrest was not the 
man to do it. He made up a small party in Cooktown — ■ 
just enough to work his steam launch and Nordenfeldt 
gun. His plan was to run itp the Fly River as far as 
there was water enough for his launch, then make a 
secondary base at that point, and with two men push 
through the forest in a generally northerly direction to 
sec what there might be to see. I was away on a cruise 
at the time, but when I heard what he had done, I knew 
tliere was nothing left but to write his epitaph. 
"Sure enough the epitaph was needed. Six months 
later two survivors managed to work the launch into 
Port Moresby, on the Gulf of Papua. They reported that 
the trip had been wthout incident until the head of navi- 
gation was reached, the latter portion of the way being 
through absolutely new_ country, and they had Forrest's 
sketch survey to prove it. Here the leader left them, ac- 
cording to his plans of further exploration. All along 
up the river there bad been slight brushes with the natives. 
but after every such skirmish the people seemed content to 
make friends and proved themselves to be of very thievish 
natures. At the secondary base the party protected its 
position by a stockade, and soon established cordial rela- 
tions with their neighbors, and opened a market, where 
trade goods were bartered for provisions. They heard 
nothing from Forrest and his two companions after they 
had set out on foot, but that did not excite ahy com* 
ment, because there were no means whatever of communi- 
cation. Their orders were to maintain themselves at the 
head of navigation until the return of the advance party, 
and not to expect them back shott of six moilths. Thfe 
survivors explained that within a inohth after the division 
of the expedition they found their stockade beset by a 
vastly superior force, who cut off all supplies from the 
country. Aii&r defending their position until they two 
were left alone, they had gone into the launch under cover 
of the darkness and made their way to the mission settle- 
ment at Port Moresby. 
"Naturally a relief party was demanded by the Gov- 
ernor and by everybody. The admiral put me in com- 
mand, both because I had been a friend of Forrest and 
also because I had had some little experience in such 
work. As far as the head of navigation on the Fly River 
it was all plain sailing, for I had the survivors to guide 
me and copies of Forrest's chart. We found the stockade 
destroj'ed and all the goods looted, but no evidence that 
Forrest had returned thither from the interior. At that 
point the real difficulties began, and we found the temper 
of the people such that we did not venture to divide our 
party. It was like searching for a needle in a hay mow. 
but we kept at it diligently. The only thing to do" was to 
investigate each village until we found one where Forrest 
had passed through. Then from this village we cast about 
among all villages within a day's march, until we found 
another point of departure. This you may imagine was 
no easy thing to do, for it was not always the case that 
our coast natives could make themselves understood. In 
this way we followed Forrest and his companions to the 
higher lands on the central chain of mountains, and there 
we lost the trail. Wc had more than once lost the trail 
before since leaving the river, but it had meant only the 
expenditure of time and patience to pick it up. But in this 
case we were unable to find that our predecessors had ever 
passed a certain village to which Ave had trailed them. 
The people were sullen, refused to understand our in- 
terpreters, and tried to make it plain that before our com- 
ing they had never seen white men or heard that there 
Avere any such beings in existence. It was overdone, and 
I promptly suspected the community. When we had 
quartered all the land beyond without 'finding trace of our 
missing friends, it was determined to round up the sus- 
pected village and make a full investigation. It was not 
long before we found Avhat the French call a piece of 
conviction. The chief or king of the place Avas wearing a 
not uncommon ornament of cannibal society, the lower 
jaw bone of a man hung on a rope of fiber about the 
neck and Avorn as a gorget. But the jaAv bone Avorn by 
the chief carried teeth that Avere filled with gold, and 
this proved that some Avhite man had been killed and eaten 
there. The prompt execution of the chief brought the 
rest of the people to confession. They acknowledged that 
they had attacked the three white men in their sleep, had 
killed them with clubs and later in the day had dined 
upon them. Their possessions they had divided up among 
the different families, but when they had learned that more 
white meu Avere coming in their direction they had hid- 
den them in the thatch of their houses for fear that we 
would hold them responsible for the other white men who 
had been killed. These goods, Avhen produced, Avere 
ample proof that it was Forrest's party that had here 
come to grief. Accordingly Ave burnt the town and de- 
stroyed their plantations in order to teach the whole in- 
terior that Avhite men Avere not to be eaten with impunity. 
It may seem somewhat unjust to inflict punishment thus 
by Avholesale, but it is the only thing that such savages 
can understand, and it is pretty safe to assume that all 
were guilty alike. 
"Search as diligently as we might. Ave could find no 
more human remains identifiable as belonging to Forrest's 
party beside that one polished jaw bone. That was 
removed from the chief before he sAvung for it, and I 
carried it back Avith me. In Sydney it Avas identified 
beyond a doubt by the dentist who had done some recent 
Avork for Forrest, and who had kept a chart of his 
mouth, showing the old and the ncAV Avork. I passed it on 
up to the admiral, and he to the Governor. That jaw 
bone was all that was left of Forrest, the cousin of half 
the peerage, and it was treated Avith respect. The Gov- 
ernor sent it home in a plush jcAvel box. Only fancy 
being called upon to mourn one's dear departed repre- 
sented solely by his jaAV bone." 
"Considering your description of Forrest's manner with 
the islanders, his fragmentary remains are somewhat 
reminiscent of the instrument with Avhich Samson did 
such great execution," said I. 
Lleaveixa Pierce Churchill, 
Takmgf Him at His Word. 
A young hopeful of some five sleighrides recently ac- 
quired a small rabbit. His aunt found him the next day 
sitting on his knees Avith the rabbit held before him in both 
hands, and alternately shaking it and exclaiming: "Five 
times five I" "Six times three !" "Four times seven !" 
Shocked at this seemingly cruel act on the part of her 
usually gentle nephew, she said : "Why, Harry, why on 
earth are you shaking that rabbit so ? You'll kill it !" 
"Well," responded Master Harry, "pape said this morn- 
mg that rabbits multiply rapidly, but I can't make this 
one say a thing !" — Ncav York Times. 
Boyhood Memofies. 
Other chapters in this aeries have been : March 23— 
"In Close Quarters," by C. P. A. ; "Old Sanger's Boat/' 
by A. L. L.; "Another First Trout," by S. D, R.;, "A 
Hunt in the BackAVOods of Tennessee," by B M S 
April 6— "An April Afternoon," by O. H. Hampton," 
"Gray Squirrel in a School House," by Graeme. April 
20— "A First Visit to the Adirondacks,'* bv A. N. 
Cheney. May 4— "The Hollow Tree." by Fall L'eaf. May 
II— "A Boy, a Man and a Memory," by Dr. T. J. Tomp- 
kins, ' . . 
